87
BANCROFT
LIBRARY
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
TECHNOCRACY
PART I.
Human Instincts in Reconstruction:
An Analysis of Urges and Suggestions for Their Direction.
PART II.
National Industrial Management:
Practical Suggestions for National Reconstruction.
PART III.
Ways and Means
To Gain Industrial Democracy.
PART IV.
Skill Economics
For Industrial Democracy.
WORKING EXPLOSIVELY
A Protest Against Mechanistic Efficiency.
WORKING EXPLOSIVELY
VERSUS
WORKING EFFICIENTLY
By William Henry Smyth
N,
IS WEALTH MORE PRECIOUS THAN
HUMAN PERSONALITY?
BANCROFT
LIBRARY
Reprinted from the Gazette, Berkeley, California
Copyright, 1920, by W. H. Smyth.
Technocracy
PART I.
Human Instincts in Reconstruction.
An Analysis of Urges and a Suggestion For Their Direction.
By William Henry Smyth
Note The author shows that the forces of the four great human
instincts to live, to make, to take, to control are as essential in mod-
ern social life as at any time in the past. But all of these urges in a
living democracy should be controlled without being controlled. To
achieve this seeming paradox we must have a great national purpose, and
unselfish leadership such as could come through a National Council
of Scientists.
Mr. William Henry Smyth has been in general practice as a con-
sulting engineer since 1879. He is the inventor of many machines and
mechanical devices, including a system of raising water by direct
explosion on its surface, the device being known as the "direct explo-
sion pump." He has been an engineering expert in many patent cases,
and is a frequent contributor to technical journals. As well as a pioneer
in mechanics, Mr. Smyth is a pioneer in economics. He is a member
of the leading scholarly associations in that field, including the Amer-
ican Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society of Great
Britain.
Parts I, II and III appeared originally in "Industrial Management"
of New York. The concluding PartIV has not heretofore been published
and will appear exclusively in The Gazette. Editor.
Instincts Control.
Instincts are the most persistent
human urge factors. Seemingly,
they are less subject to change than
even the most unchanging aspects
of our physical environment.
The Instinct to Live (self-preser-
vation) is as dominating today as
in the days of our cave-man an-
cestors; the Instinct to Construct
is as persistent in Man as in the
beaver; the Mastery Instinct (desire
to control others) is as vital as
ever; the Thievish Instinct (desire
to acquire and hoard) shows no
change, and is the same old urge
as that disclosed by the pre-man
stores of insects, birds and various
animals.
Indeed, without these primordial
urges Man could not have developed,
and the loss or atrophy of any one
of them would probably mean the
H 6
<=>
rapid extinction of the race. Thus it
would seem that our fundamental
instincts are essentially necessary to
human continuance at least, to our
social existence. So let us look
once more at these vital factors, in
the light of recent events, in order
to see what part they now take and
are likely to play in our future social
economy.
Brute Force.
No lesson of the war, probably, is
more obvious or more clearly de-
fined than the rapid trend toward
Skill as a predominating and con-
trolling factor in our immediate so-
cial development.
Recorded history and archaeologic-
al investigation confirm the sugges-
tion that in the matter of economic
control of human activities and their
products, the possession of this con-
trol has oscillated to and fro under
TECHNOCRACY
the influence of one or other of the
instinctive urges, so that character-
istic types of men secured alternate
mastery.
Starting in the pre-human period,
before the dawn of definite self-con-
sciousness, and continuing during
eons in the twilight of human intelli-
gence, raw brute force must have
been the dominating economic factor.
The influence of Skill during this
period was practically negligible, ex-
cept in so far as it affected indi-
viduals. Of this the huge prolonga-
tion of the unchanging "Stone Age"
is sufficient demonstration.
Contest With Cunning.
The gradual growth and rapid
culmination of the Skill factor is
an important consideration in our
present inquiry and likewise in our
Social Reconstruction problems. For
while Purposive Skill is of slow de-
velopment Purposive Cunning, on the
contrary, is inherently otherwise.
Indeed, Cunning and Purposiveness
both imply mental alertness and
hence are in some wise synon-
ymous.
For these reasons, in the early
stages of human development, raw
strength and animal cunning must
alone have contended to satisfy the
other instinctive urges to live, to
control practically uninfluenced by
the relatively modern urge of Pur-
poseful Skill.
Doubtless this simple conflict (of
raw strength and brute cunning)
waged with varying results, slowly
oscillating, age by age and race by
race, in favor of one or other human
type as environmental conditions or
racial admixtures gave one or other
the advantage of circumstance.
And, as Economics implies: the
usages, laws, and institutions where-
by a community endeavors to or-
ganize its methods and means of
living: those whose activities char-
acterize the times initiate and ad-
minister its economics.
Age-Long See-Saw.
So, with these age-long oscilla-
tions of control types, economic in-
stitutions necessarily underwent like
changes, conforming to _the dom-
inating human characteristics of each
Age and Nation. That they did so
oscillate and economically conform,
in the vaguest dawn of human be-
ginnings, is the teaching of archae-
ology.
During the past few thousand years
the contest of Strength and Cun-
ning is shown by reliable historical
records to have oscillated with com-
parative rapidity between one and
the other extreme including consid-
erable periods during which Strength
and Cunning unified control by
union of Church and State.
Prior to the immediate present was
a transition stage caused by the
gradual weakening of the bond be-
tween Church and State, with a
coincidental shifting of control
favor of Cunning (under a changed
and relatively modern guise repre-
senting the instinctive Urge
Take) expressing itself as Commer-
cialism. With this change came
consequent modification of usages,
laws, and institutions appropriate to
its highest expression Capitalism
capitalistic economics. The result of
this ' last oscillation of control
favor of (acquisitive) Cunning was
that Germany became a nation of
slaves, England a nation of paupers,
France quit breeding, and the
States went wealth crazy!
Challenge by Purposive Skill.
The war represents the conclusive
termination (in this period) of the
age-long contest of Force and
ning for the control of men, and
tbo products of their activity.
But this last and most spectacu!;
conflict is complicated by the intru-
sion of the most modern and most,
rapidly developing factor- Organizes
Purposive Skill.
Here, then, Skill enters the arena
with a challenge to both earlier con-
testantsfor the prize of human
control, and mastery of the social
machinery; enters that contest-
than the race itself the struggle
satisfy the primordial instinct
Live to Control to Take.
Strength vs. Cunning vs. Skill.
Thus the contest has become a
triangular fight between the Strong,
the Cunning, and the Skilful; a fight
TECHNOCRACY
in which raw brute force is a par-
ticipant of rapidly diminishing im-
portance a modified continuation of
the old time bloody contest, for a
humanly undesirable outcome.
Cunning-control is today the vic-
tor, and in possession of the spoils
the financial wealth of the world.
But all the evidence points to a
short enjoyment and a losing fight
against the organized forces of Pur-
poseful Skill.
Creaking Capitalism Cracking.
Capitalism under war stress
shows convincing evidence of in-
adequacy. The non-effectiveness of
money and credit wealth has be-
come so obvious as to procure the
enactment of "Work or Fight" laws.
Thus, into the discard went our pre-
war money evaluation of men to be
substituted by a standard which
measures millionaire and hobo alike
in accordance with their relative
skill.
Our pre-war faith in the mysteri-
ous Magic of Money too received a
staggering shock when all the pri-
vate fortunes enmassed and all _ the
billions of national credit combined
utterly failed to add a single pound
of much needed sugar to our limited
supply, necessitating the "two pounds
of sugar per person" apportionment
-a commonplace vulgar fraction
measure applicable to Financial
Potentate and Weary Willie alike!
Producer Versus Parasite.
On broader lines also the evidence
points the same way: purposive skill is
inherently productive, while purpose-
ful cunning is naturally parasitic.
Then, the capability of cunning to
rule, and the continuance of its suc-
cess in controlling others, resides in
and depends upon the stupidity and il-
literacy of the governed: mystery and
magic are its weapons equally in the
realm of modern Finance as in the
ancient Theocracies.
Skill implies the reverse of all this,
for skill is intelligence physically
manifested. It is knowledge of Na-
ture's Laws utilized dexterously and
the spread of scientific information
characterizes our age. Thus as the
bulwarks of cunning-control crumble,
\JL
-
the weapons of skill are multiplied and
perfected.
So the outcome seems a foregone
conclusion.
With this outcome, our methods
of life will necessarily change. Capi-
talistic customs, laws, and institutions
will be substituted by others differing
as widely from those with which we
are familiar as the motor ideas and
ideals of purposeful cunning differ
from those of purposeful skill.
"Work or Fight" Lesson.
Peradventure, the "Work or Fight"
and the "2 pounds of sugar per per-
son" measures are tonic foretastes of
the coming Skill-Economics.
Obviously we are in transition to a
new social order.
The signs of the times portend the
dethroning of decadent acquisitive
capitalism and the crowning of pro-
ductive skill Autocrat of the new
Age Artizanism.
This change has been in dubious
process for years; the War has merely
speeded its progress and made the
outcome practically inevitable. But,
whether it be brought about by evolu-
tion or revolution, or whether it comes
in clean-cut aspect or befogged by ir-
relevant social factors and forces, it
is in no sense a rational or final so-
lution of our "social problem."
In any event, should Artizanism
come, it will be merely another social
spasm, probably shorter than, but
equally as futile as, our present world-
wide finance madness.
Instincts Not A Rational Basis.
While it is conceivable that human
societies could be organized upon and
with any one of the stated basic In-
stincts as dominant factor and
raison d'etre; it is practically certain
that any such national society would
be quite ineffective, and transient. For
obviously it would not and could not
satisfy even our present limited intel-
ligence, our rational imagination, or
our modern spiritual ideals.
No very extended analysis would be
required to show the validity of this
proposition. The past has already
demonstrated the insufficiency of so-
cieties based upon the Mastery In-
stinct Autocracy. The present amply
4
TECHNOCRACY
nrovcs the failure of the Acquisitive
Instinct as a social basis Plutocracy.
A moment's thought will show that
a society based upon the Making In-
stinct would simply crumble in its
formative process under the demands
of our complicated modern mental
make-up, for clearly this instinct pro-
vides inadequate Human scope and
hence presupposes parasitism in even
more extended form than that of ac-
quisitive Capitalism. And worse
than all a society based upon the In-
stinct to Live and Propagate, would
return us at once to the brute state
from which we have arisen through
ages of struggle, strife, and bloodshed.
Control Without Control.
Still, it is apparent that the basic
instincts which urge "to live," "to
make," "to take," "to control," are as
useful, yes, are as essential in and to
modern social life as they have been
in all the past. But, while all are
necessary, no one of them constitutes
a proper basis law of operation for
a rational human society organization.
They are factors, necessary and desir-
able contributary parts, no one of
which is inherently adapted to func-
tion as the machine's unifier, its strain
and speed equalizer its control ele-
ment.
Thus, the determination of a suit-
able character of "control" element is
seemingly the crux of our social prob-
lem; the problem of controlling with- .
out control, that old, old paradox:
Freedom made effective by restraint
a paradox, however, which the war
may have resolved for us, by demon-
strating its non-existence.
It has, in somewise, answered our
troublous question by clear definition
in the statement of the Nation's ob-
ject in going to war.
The war has answered the question,
in another aspect, by the Nation's
adoption of the method (forced upon
it by logical compulsion) whereby
success was achieved.
"To make the World safe for De-
mocracy" is the clearest and most uni-
versally accepted statement of our
purpose in going to war Self-govern-
ment for Nations, Self-government for
Individuals.
Concept of Control.
Control by others, then, is antitheti-
cal to the ideals for which we have
waged this last, the greatest, and,
it is hoped, the final bloody contest for
Self-government.
Control is equally antithetical to our
Ideals of Self-government whether the
control is exercised by "others" char-
acterized by the Instinct to live and
breed the Masses; or whether the
control is exercised by "others" char-
acterized by the Instinct to Make
the Skilled Artizan; or whether the
control is exercised by "others" urged
by the Instinct of Mastery the_ Em-
ployers; or whether the control is ex-
ercised by "others" under their domi-
n at ing Acquisitive Instinct -- the
Financiers.
Indeed, the concept: control by
"others," is an idea inherent in and
appropriate only to now discredited
Autocracy a concept which the War
has rendered an obsolete ideal if we
are yet intelligent enough to profit
by its costly teaching.
Discard Cave-Man Control.
To be rationally consistent this
"control" concept should be as ab-
sent as it is obsolete (in fact and
effect) in our inevitable reconstruc-
tion.
This Autocracy "control" concept
must be thrown in the discard where
we have dumped the European auto-
crats whose ideal it was if our recon-
struction efforts are intended to pro-
duce a rationally organized Modern
Human Society; a Society founded up-
on the Ideals consecrated by the life
blood of our bravest and best.
But our age-long familiarity wjth
"control by others," in our halting
progress, from brute beast to modern
Man, has so deeply ingrained in our
mental fiber this stone-age concept as
to make it almost impossible for us
to even conceive the idea of a society
lacking this cave-man spiked-club
element.
Yet, no fact and lesson of our par-
ticipation in the War is more clear
and free from doubt than the spon-
taneous acquiescence by the people of
the United States rich and poor, arti-
zan and laborer, alike in self-control,
self-repression, self-dedication to the
TECHNOCRACY
united will and unified purpose of the ingly difficult problems of long
standing, the solution has evaded us
by reason of its very obviousness.
Such a unifying factor has always
existed in plain view unutilized in
Nation.
Purpose.
No lesson of the War is more
significant than: Given a National its proper function of Social Strain
Purpose, intelligently comprehended Equalizer. Indeed, this urge factor,
and acquiesced in only unselfish more even than the Instincts "to
Leadership is needed, and neither Live," "to Make," "to Take," "to
control by force nor control by Control" is the most universal and
cunning is necessary to bring about most humanly characterizing trait of
the unification of effort needed to that most marvelous complex Man.
accomplish the Nation's Objective.
The significance of this lesson is
the utter irrationality of national
Desire to Know.
I refer to Curiosity curiosity ra-
control in the hands of any class tionahzed into Desire to Know,
characterized by self-centered in- Desire to Know, while equally
stincts, or that strength or skill or urgent for gratification, inherently
cunning should be dominating fac- lacks the undesirable and inappro-
tors in the social structure. priate qualities which render the
Though none of these factors other human Instincts unsuitable as
should dominate, each and all of organizing and strain equalizing fac-
these vital and necessary elements tors in the social structure. Also it
should have free scope for the so- possesses qualities and attributes
cially effective outflow of its which make it peculiarly adapted to
particular expression of life energy. perform the rationally harmonizing
Second only in significance to the function so irrationally assumed in
acquiescence and co-operation of the all earlier social organizations under
united people is the method irre- the guise of Forceful and Cunning
sistibly forced upon the Nation by Control.
the logic and necessities of its stu-
pendous War problem.
First Real Nation.
Desire to Know is as imperative
in its demands as any of the self-
centered motor Instincts to live, to
make, to take, to control but it is
This most modern economic m- impersonal; while it is as aggressive
titution, and the unified co-opera- as other Instinctive Urges, charac-
tion ot the united people, are the teristically its energies and activities
two outstanding lessons of the War are directed at Nature, not in ag-
gression on human opponents; hence
Taken together, they point sig- it engenders no human strife; and
mficantly to the solution of our while it drives f ur i ou sly, it drives
social problem the lacking element none but its possessor in the pur-
which should and could consciously, su j t o f Knowledge
deliberately, and rationally unify the Desire to Kno ' while profoundly
basic instinctive urges into an har- intereste d in all that pertains to
monious direction of national effort Human Life and living _to eugenics
and so produce a humanly efficien and radal development-character-
national orgamzation-the first real istica]ly its possessor would risk his
Nation on earth!
own life in the pursuit of Knowledge.
!
The lacking element? the element Desire to Know, though urgently
which is adapted to assume the func- interested in Nature's Laws and in
ion and position to be vacated by a ll that concerns the correct making
he obsolescent autocratic concept and constructing of things, charac-
rbitrary "control" the element ca- teristically lacks desire to make or
pable of controlling without con- construct things, but seeks only sys-
trol, of making Freedom effective, tematized concepts of Knowledge.
Democracy a living fact as well as Desire to Know, while deeply in-
a noble Ideal! terested in all that pertains to the
In this, as in many other seem- desirable things of the world and to
TECHNOCRACY
economic affairs, characteristically
lacks the thievish impulse the In-
stinct to Take, to acquire physical
possession: supremely acquisitive it
craves only to acquire Knowledge.
Desire to Know, while surpass-
ingly Masterful, desires no mastery
of Men; it craves instead, God-like
insight, pre-vision, prophecy power
in the boundless realms of Knowl-
edge.
Leadership.
Here then is an indomitable CJrge
lacking all the inappropriate qualities
of the strife producing Autocratic
Force-and-Fear Control motor con-
cept of Social Organization, and
possessed of all the unifying quali-
ties of .Social Leadership.
A Human Society or Nation is
sanely designed and rationally or-
ganized on correct principles only
when it has a Purpose, and (as in
the case of a well considered ma-
chine) only when full cognizance is
taken of all its contributory elements,
together with their essential func-
tions and their proper co-ordination.
A National Objective.
A truly efficient National Organi-
zation would facilitate (not suppress
or prohibit) the expression of all
inherent Instinctive Urges, rational-
izing their outflowing life energy
(by sane institutional conventions)
into unification in a fully pre-
determined National Purpose.
In a crude but clearly perceptible
manner the United States, during the
War, gave suggestion of such an
Ideal Social Arrangement.
It had a defined and universally
accepted purpose:
Its Scientific (Desire to Know)
Men and its Scientific Societies were
(more or less) organized into a Uni-
fying and Advisory Board to formu-
late and suggest methods and means
for sane living and to accomplish
the predetermined purpose of the Na-
tion.
We have accomplished the object
of the War:
We have made the World safe for
Democracy.
Now, let us inaugurate a Demo-
cracy a Democracy with an object
for its existence a Democracy with
a Purpose.
By the peril to its life, the Nation
has been shocked into momentary
sanity. Let us while still rational,
rationally take to heart the lessons
which the War has taught at so
staggering a cost:
First: The need of a National
Purpose; a purpose based upon peace
and rational Human Development;
a purpose as inspiring and as unify-
ing as War for Democracy, and as
high as our highest Ideals of Life.
Second: The need of a Supreme
National Council of Scientists
supreme over all other National In-
stitutions to advise and instruct us
how best to Live, and how most effi-
ciently to realize our Individual and
our National Purpose and Ideals.
But, First and Last, a unifying Na-
tional Objective.
Fernwald, Berkeley, December, 1918.
IS IT RATIONAL TO BASE HUMAN SOCIETY
ON ANIMAL INSTINCTS?
Technocracy
PART II.
National Industrial Management.
Practical Suggestions for National Reconstruction.
By William Henry Smyth
NOTE: After outlining and characterizing the great economic drifts
in the national developments of the past, the author declares that during
the period of war the United States has developed the new form in gov-
ernment for which there is no precedent in human experience. He calls
this "Technocracy" the organizing, co-ordinating and directing through
industrial management on a nation-wide scale of the scientific knowledge
and practical skill of all the people who could contribute to the accomplish-
ment of a great national purpose. Carry this new form of government into
the days of peace and we will have industrial democracy a new common-
wealth. Editor.
Economic Drifts.
The United States is obviously in
social flux, in unstable economic equili-
brium in transition. Customs and
usages which a few years ago received
universal approval and legal sanction
are now punished as crimes. Eco-
nomic expedients which but yester-
day were deemed irrational imagina-
tions of Utopian visionaries are today
accomplished facts. And in every di-
rection immemorial methods and time
honored social processes have lost
their sacrosanctity.
Like ocean streams enfolding in
mass-flow all this whirling confusion
of economic cross-currents, legal revo-
lutions, and social agitations, there are
to be observed certain super-control-
ling drifts.
Centralization of Government.
Concentration of Wealth.
Unification of Mechanical Industries.
Force, Wealth, Industry.
These great economic drifts indi-
cate the mass resultant of myriad in-
dividual activities expressing that pe-
culiarly human quality which has made
man the dominating animal factor on
earth unquenchable desire to con-
trol the Mastery Instinct. And what
is more important in the present con-
nection, these super-controlling social
drifts also indicate the only directions
possible for the social expression of
this indomitable human urge:
Direct control of men by force and
fear exemplified in Centralization of
Government; indirect control of men
by controlling their products shown
in Concentration of Wealth; mutual-
ized control (i. e., utilization) of Na-
ture expressed in Unification of Me-
chanistic Industries.
Conflicting Ideals.
In these various forms of social ag-
gregations there are, broadly speak-
ing, but three human types involved:
The type characterized by aggres-
sive physical strength; the type char-
acterized by alert mental cunning; the
type characterized by purposive skill.
Of these the last the purposive
skill type is significantly modern,
brought into social prominence by
that most stupendous social factor,
experimental science, science which is
the effective cause and basis of this
era of invention our industrial age.
A triangular conflict of ideals of life
and of social purpose has thus been
inaugurated; a conflict which ac-
counts for and is expressed in
our "social unrest," "conflict of
capital and labor," our "social
problem" and "reconstruction." The
strife for supremacy of social ideal
and community purpose thus indicat-
ed, is co-extensive with the human
race; its most spectacular climax is
the World War. And notwithstand-
ing the many confusing forms and
many-sided aspects which this world-
8
TECHNOCRACY
wide human struggle presents, it is,
of course, at bottom the ages old con-
test of Slavery and Liberty, Bondage
and Freedom.
The Golden Age?
Our answer to this old but ever new
problem will determine whether our
industrial age will progress to a so-
cial condition of individual freedom to
which nothing in the past is compar-
able, or whether our time shall be, to
future generations, the Golden Age!
the highwater mark of human liberty
the age of a noble but a futile fight
for a great ideal Democracy.
Club Economics.
In simple cave-man times the boss-
parent, quite naturally, made and ad-
mmistered suitable primitive eco-
nomics with his persuasive club as a
very practical emblem of authority.
Under this raw-force regime the
weaker "fagged" for the stronger; and
the doings and havings of the "rags"
made life more likeable for the force-
ful.
As the procreator of his subjects
and superior in strength during most
of their lives the "ownership" of
them and theirs by the boss-parent
was as "natural" as any other obvious
fact; and chattel slavery as necessary
as parent ownership is self-evident.
Mystery Economics.
Then, Miracle-Fire-Maker and Ani-
mal Breeder came along, and dis-
turbed many of the time honored and
well established customs playing
havoc generally with club-economics.
By his wonder working magics cun-
ning Miracle-worker put the fear of
gods (more potent than physical
strength) into the heart of simple old
skull-cracker parent-god. So Miracle-
worker waxed fat, and in his turn
initiated and administered suitable
economics fire worship and mystery-
economics, otherwise Theocracy.
With theocracy came the greatest
of all social revolutions; the dethron-
ing of brute strength and the crown-
ing of mental alertness Cunning.
This marked an epoch in human his-
tory, in man's upward progress as
a social animal. Also it marked the
beginning of control of men (and their
products) through man's instinctive
fear of the unknown the Rule of the
Cunning.
Force-Mystery-Economics.
With varying fortunes force-eco-
nomics and cunning-economics con-
tended for supremacy till in compara-
tively modern times autocracy was
found an effective compromise. In this
most practical arrangement, the (by
that time conventionalized) parent-
god received his authority from the
All-powerful God-of-Magic. So was
initiated modernized force-mystery-
economics. And the human race has
as yet found no more efficient means
for the control of organized society
than force-mystery-economics; meth-
ods, means, and institutions which, but
superficially modified since old Miracle
worker's day, still function in our
twentieth century (autocratic and
democratic) customs, usages, conven-
tions, and legalized economic systems.
Working-by-proxy-Economics.
In cave-man economics, the real
function of the club or the purpose
of Club-er was not to incapacitate
Club-ee, but to induce the latter to do
and supply the matters and things
which otherwise would require greater
and more constant expenditure of ef-
fort on the part of the economist, than
the semi-occasional swing of his skull-
cracker.
Old Skull-cracker's motives (though
more crudely expressed) were the
same as mine are, in the employment
of my cook and my gardener, that is
economy of effort on my part; other-
wise working-by-proxy.
But the club-economic-system was
essentially wasteful and inefficient; its
operating expenses were outrageously
high, notwithstanding the low cost of
raw (human) material. Indeed, the
system was apt to defeat its own ends,
especially in those strenuous days,
when zeal commonly outran discre-
tion.
Doers and Suppliers.
Thus mystery-coercion represents
an enormous economic advance over
raw physical force. Fear of unknown
but awesome consequences for failure
to do and supply matters and things is
fully as effective as the club and be-
TECHNOCRACY
9
yond measure less wasteful of Doers
and Suppliers.-
So i. is quite natural and inevitable
that crude force methods and pro-
cesses of economic control should
lose favor in competition with mystery
economic systems. And long race ex-
perience has proved that a judicious
combination of club and mystery
(otherwise force and cunning) makes
for the highest degree of efficiency in
a Working-by-Proxy economic sys-
tem.
Proxy-Beneficiaries.
Such economic systems, however,
obviously imply direct or indirect
slavery ownership of the body or
control of the mind of the proxy. And
for the latter the mystery method is
peculiarly adapted and most satisfac-
tory.
For self-evident reasons, control
over another's mind is more effective
and economical than property owner-
ship of his body, taking into con-
sideration the practical responsibility
which the latter entails. So quite na-
turally, direct ownership of Proxy by
the economical Worker-by-proxy gives
place to customs, usages, and conven-
tions (economics), facilitating control
over the results of Proxy's activities.
Then, too, complex division of labor
and specialization render chattel slav-
ery impractical, indeed unworkable, in
a society highly organized for pro-
ductive industry. So an ideal work-
ing-by-proxy economic system would
permit complete physical liberty to do
and to make, while arranging appro-
priate usages, customs, and laws which
automatically transfer ownership of
the matters and things done and made,
from the doers and makers to the
proxy-beneficiaries.
. Economic Science?
The difference between modern and
primordial economics is not in idea or
purpose, but only in added obscurity
of method and in greater complexity
of detail. Incidentally, also, it has be-
come evident that "economics" is not
a "science" in any proper sense, but
a variable system of community us-
ages intended to facilitate the pre-
dominating social activities. And,
hence, to be workable an "economic
system" must be in keeping with the
activities which characterize the times.
In cave-man times, the boss-parent
and his club-men had to make cave-
economics. A system initiated by the
"fags" would have been obviously un-
workable. The priesthood had to
initiate and administer theocratic eco-
nomics. And so on, through the
various changes in social organization:
Those whose activities characterize
the times must initiate and administer
its economics.
Economic Experiments.
Raw force has been relegated to
the economic backwoods to the
facially infantile tribes of darkest
Africa, and to the social usages of
our anachronistic "criminal elements,"
the yegg, the thug, the gun-fighter,
the strong-arm gangs of the under-
world of modern organized society.
Theocracy, with its crude cunning,
its childish terrors and its dazzling
promises of future (super-mundane)
rewards, has practically vanished as a
recognized dominant social factor a
fading shadow of ancient greatness.
Autocracy, that cunning combination
of force and fear economics, has just
now been dumped into the scrap-heap
of out-worn social expedients, at the
cost of the most atrocious and blood-
iest of all wars, and the flower of the
World's Manhood.
Plutocracy, with its autocratic capi-
talistic economics (while weakened
and shaken by the shocks and stresses
of the World War) is still a virile
contestant for the throne of World
Dominion.
Strength, Skill, Cunning.
Economics efficient for autocracy
must necessarily differ from eco-
nomics appropriate to theocracy; and
these would differ from economics
suitable for plutocracy; and these
again would 'differ still more from
economics appropriate to and efficient
for Industrial Democracy. In brief:
Force-economics, Cunning-economics,
and Skill-economics must necessarily
differ as widely as the essential dif-
ferences between the basic qualities,
Strength, Cunning, Skill.
Hence any attempt to organize or
"re-construct" a social aggregation
with these three basic human traits
as contemporary economic bases
10
TECHNOCRACY
means simply continual social warfare;
a war which, sooner or later, must be
decided by victory for the Strong, the
Cunning, or the Skilled unless human
ingenuity can devise a form of society
which will permit and facilitate the
full, unified, and socially useful expres-
sion of these three irrepressible forms
of life energy.
Mechanized Industry.
Thus we return to the three great
social drifts:
Centralization of Government;
Concentration of Wealth;
Unification of Mechanistic Indus-
tries..
Of the first two little need be said,
for they are familiar racial experi-
ences. But the last the mechanizing
of life is quite otherwise; hence it is,
if for no other reason, the most sig-
nificant factor to be taken into account
in the social problems with which we
are now confronted our problem of
economic reconstruction.
And, truly, our modern mechaniza-
tion of human life is a most dubious
social experiment a danger-fraught
development a dynamitic racial ad-
venture.
Modern Science.
Back of the mechanizing of human
functioning is that greatest of all mod-
ern marvels experimental science.
Science has brought about a pro-
found revolution in our mental atti-
tude toward life, and in our methods
of dealing with nature. It has swept
into the discard practically all our pre-
vious notions regarding ourselves and
our relations to the laws of nature
to Universal Reality. It has, at the
same time, debased man's pride in the
dust of humility, and glorified intelli-
gence and human worth to God-like
heights.
Science is, of course, the effective
cause of our present mechanistic de-
velopment with all its physical bene-
fits and all its spiritulil horrors; for
science knows neither morals nor eth-
ics, and is equally potent for social
"bad" as for social "good."
Science works just as effectively in
criminal hands as in thos,^ of a saint.
It is an impersonal, ethically neutral
force and factor so potent that even
in the chaotic condition in which it
now exists it has brought about a
world revolution in man's mental out-
look and his physical activities, both
individually and collectively. Indeed
it has shown to man a new Heaven,
a new Earth, and a new Hell.
Our social Heaven we have yet to
construct, but the World War is suf-
ficiently impressive proof of what
social Hell can be wrought by Science
in the hands of self-interest.
Past and Present.
As the result of modern science,
the present time is without precedent,
hence no valid analogy exists or can
be imagined between an economic
system appropriate to our science-
taught mechanistic age and earlier
economic systems suitable to condi-
tions of life, the warp, woof, and pat-
tern of which were Mystery, Magic,
Chance.
That no helpful comparison can be
made between the past and the pres-
ent would be completely true, were
it not that our science teachings affect
but the thinnest superficial layer of
our conscious thinking, while the
There is a serenity, a long view on the part of science, which seems
to be of no age, but to carry human thought along from generation to
generation, freed from the elements of passion. Every just mind must
condemn those who so debase the studies of men in science as to
use them against humanity and, therefore, it is part of your task and of
ours to reclaim science from this disgrace, to show that she is devoted to
the advancement and interest in humanity and not to its embarrass-
ment and destruction. The spirit of science is a spirit of seeking after
truth so far as the truth is ready to be applied to human circum-
stances.
From President Wilson's address before the Academy of Lincei in
Rome.
TECHNOCRACY
11
fabric of our thought processes, our
familiar customs, our current usages,
our economic institutions remain prac-
tically unchanged our racial heritage.
But, even so, the unceasing con-
flict of past and present, of slavery
and freedom, of bondage and liberty,
of error and truth, goes ever on and
on a blood soaked path; a path of
misery, strife and disappointment,
though hopefully ever upward toward
our ideal Industrial Democracy with
* personal freedom for Self-realization.
Mental Inertia.
Without a concurrent change of
economic institutions appropriate to
the amazingly rapid psychical devel-
opment and refinement of our modern
ideals brought about by the advent
of science the realization of these
ideals will be impossible. And sorrow-
fully we recognize that man's instinc-
tive resistance to change of old estab-
lished modes of thought howsoever
irrational makes progress in this di-
K-ection seem almost hopeless.
Familiar Fallacies.
Most reluctantly are familiar fal-
acies relinquished, indeed, we hang
on to them with irrational tenacity
ages after their unworkable character
has time and again been tragically
demonstrated.
As in our bodily functions and skele-
tal frame there still persist the char-
acteristics of our Saurian primordial
ancestry, so ancient modes of thought
live unnoted in our present day think-
ing processes; and our social institu-
tions represent the seemingly out-
grown superstitions constituting
man's mental heredity during every
past age since the infancy of the
human race.
"Gott mit tins."
Medievalism characterizes our sa-
cred and secular institutions and
energizes our customary actions.
Demonology is practically as prev-
alent as in the past; unnoted in
ourselves but easily perceived in the
"Gptt mit uns" attitude of the
Kaiser.
We ^ pray for health, heedless of
nature's laws; we pray for long life
while disregarding the simple rules
of right living; we beseech forgive-
ness of "sin" while making sin
profitable by deliberate legal enact-
ment. In a world filled to over-
flowing with all good and humanly
desirable things to be had for the
striving, we economically steal from
our industrious neighbors; like
paupers we beg "God" for vicari-
ously earned joys, for unearned
prosperity, and for all other forms of
undeserved "good fortune;" and like
pert children we urge silly advice
on our man-made Providence, for
the conduct of common human af-
faiis, which we are too lazy, too
stupid, too self-indulgent to bring to
desired outcome by our own effort.
The God of Chance.
Important departments of life and
the distribution of the products of
industry trade, speculation, oppor-
tunity, recreation involve large ele-
ments of "luck," for by grotesquely
solemn "laws" the issues are left
to the "God of Chance." Just pre-
cisely as in the old days when mo-
mentous matters were settled by the
entrails of sacrificial animals.
The killing of President McKinle}
by a madman "caused" the depre-
ciation in the value of stocks to the
extent of thousands of millions of
dollars; the San Francisco calamity
which rendered half a million hu-
man beings homeless -"made" for-
tunes for the owners of and specu-
lators in suburban property; the
Titanic disaster threw a hundred
millions of wealth (others' products)
into the hands of a school-boy, and
with it control over the lives of
thousands of human beings; and eveu
the supreme tragedy of a World
at War is the prolific "cause" of
transforming hundreds of mediocre
men into multi-millionaires and
hence into powerful social factors
Diabolism.
All this represents kindergarten
thinking, primitive and childish ^ as
nursery prattle of prixies and fairies,
Aladin's lamp, and all the other
forms of Old World superstition and
diabolism, worthy only of the in-
fancy of the race.
Were it not that these grotes-
queries characterize our "economic
12
TECHNOCRACY
and finance system" and our solemn
Professors soberly teach them, they
would be utterly incredible in this
Age of Science and Mechanics.
But, as already indicated, our "eco-
nomics and finance" are merely sur-
vivals from pre-science times; an in-
heritance from the days of wizardry
and witchcraft, mystery and magic.
Our quaint "economics" and queer
"finance" are as anachronistic, as
inconsistent, and as ineffective in this
Mechanical Age of Industrialism, as
astrology would be in an astrono-
mical observatory, alchemy in a
chemical laboratory or "perpetual mo-
tion" in a machine shop.
Scientific Foresight.
Imagination based on science en-
ables us to foresee the oak in the
acorn coming events latent in pres-
ent happenings. But so strong is
custom, so firm is the grip of the
past, so compelling is the obses-
sion of ancient superstitions, that
with all our lately acquired capa-
bility for rational scientific thinking
only the tragedy of the accom-
plished fact has sufficient power to
jolt our sluggard wits into momen-
tary activity.
Ten, fifteen, yes, twenty-five years
ago, it required no more intelligence
to foresee the present war than to
anticipate a crop in the Fall from
seed sown in the Spring.
Even less scientific imagination is
now needed to foretell a condition
of social disintegration, one more wide-
spread and disastrous than the War,
as the logical and inevitable outcome
of our irrational and antiquated so-
cial conventions our "economic and
financial system."
Taking Instinct.
If taking by force or diverting by
cunning, in whole or in part the
product of another's effort, without
adequate equitable return, be accept-
ed as a valid social principle of
action between individuals, it must
be equally good and proper as be-
tween social groups, as between na-
tions.
But however disguised in smooth
sounding phrases the "chances of
business," the "profits of trade,"
the "opportunity of others' misfor-
tune," the "prize of the victor," the
"fortunes of war," the "right of
might" taking expresses the par-
asitic and predatory instincts. And,
called by whatsoever name or how-
soever disguised, taking others' mak-
ings by force, or diverting others'
products by stealthy cunning, inevit-
ably involves unending strife; strife
within . the group and recurring wars
of nations strife to settle the rela-
tive strength or cunning as between
individuals, and wars to determine
the relative might of nations.
Predatory Economics.
Our "economic system" is essen-
tially autocratic in means, in method,
in objective. Being a left-over from
an Age of Predatory Autocracy,
necessarily its ideals are materialis-
tic its motor instinct and urge im-
pulse being self-centered "greed and
grab." Naturally its means are force
and cunning and its methods are
ruthless, for its object is power-
power, irresponsible and absolute.
Our Modern Ideals.
If we are to remain true to our
ideals ideals which the flame of war
has illumined to our normally pur-
blind spiritual insight our course
is determined. We have no choice
but to choose freedom: pioneer a
virgin trail, slash a course unblazed
by history, uncharted in race experi-
ence a courage testing National Ad-
venture.
The race has never before been
confronted with a situation in any
way analogous to the one in which
we now find ourselves, nor a prob-
lem the like of that which we are
now compelled to solve; yes, and
solve correctly, if we would avoid
distintegration into social chaos
overwhelmed by a science-made
Frankenstein.
Science Is Dynamitic!
Science has, however, put into our
hands an instrumentality of such
immeasurable potency, that, used
with intelligent courage, we may con-
quer all our difficulties, surmount all
our social obstructions.
But, Science left to chance, or in
the hands of unintelligent self-interest,
TECHNOCRACY
13
e
E
a
the chances are it will work untold
social calamity.
There are so many roads to go
wrong, and only one way to go ri^ht.
To leave a force and factor of
such supreme social significance ;ind
potentiality as Science in its present
condition socially uncontrolled and
unorganized for the commonweal
is more crassly unintelligent than to
permit fused and capped dynamite to
be scattered around promiscuously,
to the chances of any carelessly or
maliciously applied spark.
(A striking and significant parallel-
ism to the thought here expressed
was subsequently voiced by Presi-
dent Wilson in one of his speeches
at the Versailles Peace Conference:
"Is it not a startling circumstance,
for one thing, that the quiet studies
of men in laboratories, that the
thoughtful developments which have
taken place in quiet lecture rooms,
have now been turned to the de-
struction of civilization?
'The enemy whom we have just
overcome had at his seats of learning
some of the principal centers of
scientific study and discovery, and he
used them in order to make de-
struction sudden and complete; and
only the watchful, continuous co-op-
eration of men can see to it that
cience as well as armed men are
ept within the harness of civiliza-
tion.")
Democracy.
In the rough, Democracy is the
ule of the mob, the rule of the
asses, the rule of the majority the
ule of un-intelligence. But even so,
t is better than any form of govern-
mental control based upon self-inter-
est not excepting "Beneficent Autoc-
racy."
Humanly bad and socially ineffi-
cient as it may be, and has been, De-
ocracy alone encloses and fosters
he living germ of freedom self- gov-
ernment.
But, during the scant two years that
we were at war, no ordinary or ac-
cepted definition of Democracy could
make that term descriptive of the
United States; indeed, under the life
threatening stress of a World War,
our great but chaotic nation in self-
preservation ceased to be a Democ-
racy!
Transformation.
In that remarkable war transfor-
mation, we certainly did not become
an Autocracy; even less so a Plutoc-
racy; and least of all a Theocracy. In
fact, during this thrillingly interesting
time, the United States developed into
a form of "Government" for which
there is no precedent in human ex-
perience.
National Industrial Management
Technocracy.
The characterizing peculiarity which
rendered our great country unique
during this period of national stress
and not only unique but uniquely ir-
resistible, was the fact that we ra-
tionally organized our National Indus-
trial Management. We became, for
the time being, a real Industrial Na-
tion.
This we did by organizing and co-
ordinating the Scientific Knowledge,
the Technical Talent, the Practi-
cal Skill and the Man Power of the
entire Community: focusing them in
the National Government, and apply-
ing this Unified National Force to the
accomplishment of a Unified National
Purpose.
For this unique experiment in ra-
tionalized Industrial Democracy I
have coined the term ''Technocracy."
It was but an experiment a forced
one to meet an exceptionally serious
emergency; and like most other ex-
perimental devices, it doubtless was
far from perfect in many ways and
details. Still, as it seems to me, it
presented an important suggestion, the
germ of a novel and significant idea
a pioneer idea in the ancient art of
government.
Dog-Eat-Dog.
Until appropriate economic institu-
tions and instrumentalities are avail-
able, humanly effective Industrial De-
mocracy must remain an unrealizable
ideal, a theory unattainable as a work-
a-day principle of social life, and for
the efficient distribution of the pro-
ducts of toil, upon which human life
rests.
The practical working out of our
present efforts in this direction, has so
14
TECHNOCRACY
far only resulted in a frenzied scram-
ble for wealth, place, power a brut-
ish-instinct-scramble, in which greed,
cunning, and lust for human mastery
are the urges; "dog-eat-dog" the
"practical" ideal; and mystery,
medievalism, law-loaded-dice and
chuck-a-luck instrumentalities the con-
trolling factors.
The Greedless Scientist.
In this weird social (?) conglomera-
tion how incongruous seems and, in-
deed, is the greedless scientist, who
seeks but to learn, to comprehend, and
to co-ordinate the laws of nature; and
who cares naught for human mastery.
In this frenzied scramble for science-
created wealth what earthly chance
has its real creator the scientist?
Practically none!
None, unless he sells himself into
virtual slavery; unless he debauches
his truth-seeking to the interest of
those who more "practical" devote
their energy and cunning to the "prac-
tical" enterprise of gaining power by
securing control of wealth. And yet,
the United States is characteristically
a nation of technologists scientists,
inventors, workers in and utilizers of
the raw materials and the forces of
nature. Not only are we instinctively
mechanistic, but we are by heritage,
by force of circumstance, and by tra-
dition born lovers of personal free-
dom. Freedom is our ideal self-
government.
Prior to the War, our de-humaniz-
ing ideal was Mechanistic Efficiency,
under its soul-searching stress was
born a Humanly Effective Nation.
Our Costly Lesson.
With all these considerations before
us, and our fleeting glance at the pos-
sibilities of socially unified skill, tech-
nology, and science, how worse than
foolish to revert to our pre-War "dog-
eat-dog" practices and practical (?)
ideals.
Instead of so doing, would it not
be well to take to heart the lessons
forced upon us at so stupendous a
cost of life and human misery?
Would it not be wise statesmanship
to experiment further on the lines of
direction into which we were forced
by the compulsions and stresses of
War?
Reconstruction With a National
Objective.
The War is over won!
We are now facing the in reality-
more stupendous problems of social
reconstruction.
For the War, we enlisted, conscript-
ed, commandeered all our men who by
natural aptitude, and by personal in-
clination, were adapted to the require-
ments of war. We organized and co-
ordinated them for the intended pur-
pose; we trained and exercised their
bodies and their minds to meet known
and unknown trials; we energized
their loyalty to the Flag the Com-
monweal; we stirred their personal de-
votion to the Nation's ideals; we en-
thused their wills to the accomplish-
ment of the unified Will of the Nation
-the National Objective.
Rationalized Industrial Democracy.
No need is there to speak of the
result of this Unification of National
Spirit and National Purpose the War
is over; won! gloriously won!
As we enlisted all those peculiarly
adapted to the destructive functions
of War, let us now systematically
unify those peculiarly adapted to the
constructive functions of Peace our
scientists, our technologists, our in-
ventors, indeed, all who by natural
aptitude and personal inclination are
specially fitted to deal with the social
and constructive problems of peaceful
industry; nationally unify them and
their accomplishments for the Com-
monweal.
Let us organize our scientists,
our technologists, our exceptionally
skilled; let us commandeer, conscript,
enlist, their loyalty, their devotion,
their enthusiasm, their intelligence,
their interest, their talents, their ac-
complishments for the purposes oi
Peace and the realization of a Noble
National Purpose.
Let us rationalize our Industrial De-
mocracy!
Public Service First.
We are up against the problem oi
national reconstruction; let us not
tinker with futile details let us na-
tionally Re-construct.
Such a national co-ordination oi
Science and Technology, as is here
suggested, would produce and consti-
TECHNOCRACY
15
tute a living and Social life-giving Na-
tional Reservoir of Science practical
and theoretical; a Technical Army de-
voted to Peace and Construction.
It would constitute a National Army,
from which alone Private Interests
could draw their needed scientific and
technical personnel; personnel whose
loyalty is primarily to the Common-
weal the Nation; the Nation of which
they are honored Public Servants.
This is the exact reverse of our pres-
ent unpatriotic, un-democratic order
and organization. Yet, such an intim-
ate, but subsidiary, relation to public
service, as is suggested, would liberate
not hamper individual energy and free-
dom of private enterprise, for it would
permit the free expression of self-
interest unified in the commonweal.
Also it would, without conflict, fa-
cilitate the full and socially useful out-
flow of the three vigorous forms of
life energy Strength, Skill, Cunning.
Industrial Apex.
From this co-ordinated Army of
Science, Technology, and Skill should
be selected (by a process of realized
capability and recognized social worth)
a representative and comprehensive
National Council of Scientists as Man-
aging Directors our Supreme Social
Institution.
This National Council should be the
apex of the Nation's Industrial Man-
agement. It should constitute the
Leadership of our thus rationalized
Industrial Democracy.
Purpose.
But this reconstruction revolu-
tionary as it doubtless will appear to
many is only preparation for our
National Task.
It would, indeed, make of us an or-
ganized human aggregation a unified
social machine, capable of intelligent
self-conscious national life; and then
comes the question:
For what worthy purpose have we
constructed this huge highly organized
Human Instrumentality?
This problem a Nation no less
than an individual unescapably faces,
the instant it has become really self-
determining.
It is the Nation's first, its final, its
only problem the final problem of
human existence.
And this all-important matter, every
Nation (like every individual) must
settle for itself settle between itself
and Universal Rationality: The ob-
ject of the Nation's being; its con-
scious Rational purpose its National
Objective.
Fernwald, Berkeley, January, 1919.
SHOULD THE DESTINY OF THE NATION
BE LEFT TO CHANCE?
Technocracy
PART III.
Ways and Means
To Gain Industrial Democracy.
By William Henry Smyth
NOTE: In the two preceding essays Mr. Smyth forecasts a new form
of government that he calls "Technocracy" National Industrial Man-
agement. This article discusses ways and means to develop, guide and di-
rect purposive industrial democracy and so usher in a new commonwealth.
The author suggests three practical thoughts for economic reconstruc-
tion: That permitting chance to influence our lives and conditions means
ignorance. That the flow of time is not reversible the future cannot help
the present. That cause and effect, not whim, is the law in nature's pro-
cesses. Editor.
Social Structures.
Democracy and Autocracy are the
antitheses of social organization and
express opposite underlying principles
of human interaction.
The structural details of any human
contrivance whether Mechanical or
Sociological must be in keeping with
its underlying idea. Change in prin-
ciple necessarily entails functional re-
organization reconstruction.
Hence, ways and means that have
proved effective for autocracy, or that
long usage has shaped to facilitate
its aims and outcomes, must needs be
not only unworkable in, but subversive
of, democracy. So it will be helpful
in our quest to keep constantly and
clearly in mind the differences be-
tween these mutually exclusive no-
tions of Government.
Autocracy.
Probably the most radical difference
between these two forms of social
structures is the assumed sources from
which each gets its authority.
Autocracy derives its powers from
"God." This assumption pre-supposes
inherent social distinctions between
individuals --occult privileges con-
ferred upon some to control the acts
of others. But effectively to control
acts makes requisite control of
thoughts, for consecutive thought
necessarily precedes purposive action.
Thus Autocracy implies a "God-
given" right of censorship over other
men's physical and mental function-
ing. Hence, it also pre-supposes the
non-neutrality of Nature cosmic-
favoritism; for clearly nature's "God"
could not look with favor upon dis-
obedience or lack of submission to the
mandates of His authorized agents.
A social organization framed upon
this general idea implies constructive
details, i. e., customs, laws, institutions
economics comprising :
1. A Supreme Control element, de-
riving its authority from and respon-
sible only to a super-mundane source.
2. Social instrumentalities to en-
force obedience physically coerce hu-
man actions, and super-naturally con-
trol men's thoughts.
3. A descending series of conferred
authority starting with the "God-ap-
oointed Ruler" and ending with the
popular "masses" void of rights.
Thus ^the measure of efficiency in
this social system is the absoluteness
of control -- completeness of en-
forced obedience in act and subservi-
ence in thought to the "God-inspired
will" of the Autocrat and his Agents.
Democracy.
Democracy derives its authority
from Man. This pre-supposes general
intelligence sufficient at least for self-
conscious Individual wants and Mass
purposes, with freedom for their pur-
suit; thus it assumes super-mundane
non-interference with human wants
and purposes, and a rational Cosmic
Order corresponding or co-ordinated
to human intelligence in suchwise as
to be knowable and responsive there-
to.
A social system based upon this gen-
TECHNOCRACY
17
eral idea implies constructive details
in consonance with:
1. The neutrality of nature.
2. Inherent individual rights flowing
from the facts of rational human ex-
istence.
3. Equality of individual rights.
Thus the measure of efficiency in a
Democracy is to be gaged by the com-
pleteness of individual freedom of
thought and liberty of action in rela-
tion to each other and of access to
nature's stores, resources and forces
freedom and liberty being based upon
rationality as determined by work-
ability in the production of general
human happiness, prosperity and op-
portunity for self-development.
Autocracy is based upon the idea
of the essential manship (i. e. man-
likeness) of "God" and the inher-
ent unrighteousness irrationality of
Man.
Democracy is based upon the idea
of the essential God-ship (i. e. God-
likeness) of Man and the inherent
righteousness rationality of the Uni-
verse.
Thus we get a clear concept of our
chosen social Ideal, and from it indi-
cations as to the character of means
appropriate to or discordant therewith.
In other words we have on broad lines,
bases for rational economic conven-
tions, adapted to make effective a so-
cial system on the basic principles of
Democracy.
Limitations.
Neither by mutual agreement, nor
by legal enactment, nor constitutional
provision, nor even as a concession
to ancient custom and universal con-
sent may we make two units and two
units constitute five units being con-
trary to the facts of nature. For pre-
cisely the same reasons we cannot (by
any or all of these social expedients)
successfully adopt or retain economic
devices at variance with the essential
principles of Democracy.
Industrial Democracy Purpose.
Autocracy and Democracy are both
merely forms of human organization,
group contrivances social machines
built on different basic ideas or prin-
ciples; machines to accomplish some-
thing.
A Nation (no less than an individ-
ual) that would build (or "recon-
struct") without first clearly deter-
mining the purpose of the proposed
structure, would be indulging in
a foolish and futile waste of en-
ergy. But what our national purpose
is, is quite apart from the present in-
quiry. And, indeed, it is not the prov-
ince of an individual, but of consensus
to determine the ultimate National Ob-
jective.
Industrial Democracy.
The people of the United States
have, however, agreed and decided
upon the idea of the National Or-
ganization and its proximate charac-
ter Industrial Democracy. Or
perhaps this outcome represents the
resultant of choice and circumstance.
Be that as it may, we are now con-
sciously launched on a career of
mechanistic Industrial Democracy;
and the aim of the present inquiry
is to investigate the functional con-
sistency (appropriateness) of the
working parts to the accepted prin-
ciple of the National Social Machine.
Neutral Nature.
The greatest and most consequence-
breeding thought that has ever found
lodgement in the human mind is the
idea that: Nature is neutral toward
Man and in regard to all Human con-
cerns.
The greatest and most conse-
quential human discovery is: The
Orderliness rationality of Nature.
These two concepts are the mar-
velously fruitful germs from which
all modern Science has developed.
And, as exact science based upon
experimental proof owes its con-
tinued development to machines of
precision; it may with ultimate sig-
nificance be said that our idea and
Ideal of Human Liberty, self-govern-
ment, as we today conceive it, is
one of the many wonderful products
of the machine shop our Mechan-
istic Industrialism.
Motor Impulse of Autocracy.
Man's soul is free, hence Rational
Liberty is his social motor impulse.
Clearly, with an anthropomorphic
"God" interested in human wants,
wishes, purposes, and projects, and
18
TECHNOCRACY
with unlimited power and inclination
to meddle in human concerns, to
help or hinder, to make or mar them;
human "freedom of thought" would
be futile, and human "liberty of ac-
tion" a farce.
We have seen that the motor im-
pulse of Autocracy is super-mundane
in origin; its initiative is super-
human; its means are mysterious
occult powers derived from "above";
that privilege maintained by ruthless
force and cunning is an essential
element; and power absolute and
humanly irresponsible is its objec-
tive.
These factors therefore present
some criteria wherewith to gauge
the validity of present economic con-
ventions; also to test their appropri-
ateness in a Democracy, the basis of
which is human experience energized
by individual human initiative; like-
wise to measure their probable worth
in a society in which the powers
to do, and the opportunity to be,
are derived from the consensus of
free and equal human wills; wills
subject to none, but co-operating to
facilitate individual and mutual pur-
poses purposes socially unified in
the purposive National Will.
Nature Non-Ethical.
In . the light of Modern Science,
human experience shows that Na-
ture's dealings with Man carry no
more moral or ethical significance
than in the problems of Practical
Mechanics. Scientifically enlightened
experience teaches that Humanity
alone is ethical or takes account
of motives:
Impartially the sun warms and
scorches, blesses or blasts; brings
famine and plenty, life and death.
The sea, the wind, earthquake and
torrent, and all the forces of Nature
build and destroy, with utter disre-
gard to Man or his handiworks, his
hopes or his faiths, his motives or
his morals. The wondrous mechan-
ism of Creative Evolution performs its
myriad functions no less oblivious to
Man's existence than are the ponder-
ous machines of Man's own devising.
Nature, like them, fosters or over-
whelms with heedless indifference;
ruthless, pitiless, appalling to ignor-
ance, error, and fear; but helpful, in-
dulgent, obedient to knowledge,
intelligence and courage; neither
kind nor cruel, nor good, nor bad
impersonal.
Failure.
In the past, with childlike faith we
have relied for support and guidance
in human affairs upon the assumed
beneficence of occult Powers. Upon
this basis, Autocracy is the only con-
ceivable form of social organization.
Yet, the autocratic idea and Ideal
has proven, (in the opinion of many),
to be a disastrous failure under mod-
ern conditions; and we in the United
States have decided to try its
antithesis Democracy.
But while discarding the old for
the new Ideal, we have, most illog-
ically, retained substantially un-
changed the effective conventions,
the ways and means, of the old
order.
And now, with modern Science and
Mechanics hindered and hampered
at all points by our futile and in-
appropriate "Economic System"- -we
are fighting for National life and
Democracy against efficiently or-
ganized Autocracy. Not alone the
Autocracy of organized military force
but also the Autocracy of system-
atized and unified financial Cunning.
Thus the urgent need for scientific
reconstruction of our whole social
system is multiplied manyfold, if we
are to rectify our past sins against
reason and retrieve our pitiful social
failure.
Modern Dependence on Machinery.
The life of the ordinary modern
man differs from that of all previous
times in his peculiar dependence upon
complicated machinery machinery
over which he exercises no personal
control. The manifold activities
which in past times depended upon
individual muscular effort are now
performed by prime movers and
power driven machines, so that the
individual man's work and effort is
unmeaning and useless apart from
these instrumentalities of life and
production.
Thus the United States is one huge
mechanistic industrial workshop..
The organization of these com-
plex, specialized, power-driven mech-
TECHNOCRACY
19
anisms and the sources of power and
of the raw materials with and upon
which they operate, together with
the distribution of the output, are
the functions of Scientific and Tech-
nical Industrial Management.
There should be, it would seem,
no room or occasion in such an ar-
rangement, for chance, mystery or
magic.
Old Customs.
That the average individual prefers
old customs to new, helps to account
for much that is strange in present
conditions; but it fails to explain
completely how it happens _ that
occultism has been wholly banished
from the Machine Shop the Social
Producing Element and remains so
conspicuously interwoven in oui
"Economics" the Social Distributive
Element.
It would seem that we are com-
pelled to assume that our deep seated
human instinct of self-interest is the
controlling factor in maintaining this
incongruous combination of Science
and Occultism.
It would seem that the cunning
acquisitive instinct of certain excep-
tionally alert minded men in the com-
munity taking advantage of the
normal preference of the average man
for old ways and customs, and his
preoccupation in his favorite work-
ings and doings is employing these
ancient and familiar usages to befog
and obscure the stealthy diversion of
an undue proportion of the Commun-
ity Product.
If this be so, it should be interest-
ing to glance at the ways and means,
the prestidigitatorial bag-o-tricks by
which it is accomplished. Later we
will scrutinize them more closely and
in greater detail.
Money and Credit.
The bases of Mechanics in all its
simple and complex expressions are
two commonplace elements the
Wedge and the Lever; the bases of
pur Economic and Financial System
in all its curious manifestations are
also two commonplace elements
"Money" and "Credit."
Here the similarity ends.
There is not on ordinary fourteen-
year-old school boy in the United
States but who knows and intelli-
gently uses the wedge and lever; and
there does not exist a Mechanical
Expert who could reasonably ques-
tion the practical accuracy of the
boy's knowledge regarding these
elements of mechanics.
Under our present economic us-
ages, customs and laws, each one of
us man, woman and child is com-
pelled, willy-nilly, to use daily and
hourly some form of "money" and
"credit"; and there is not in the world
a man who understands either of
these economic elements, as the
boy knows the wedge and lever.
Nor is there an Economic Specialist
or Financial Expert whose attempted
explanation of either "money" or
"credit" (or the functions of either)
whose supposed elucidation would
not be ridiculed and controverted by
a multitude of Economic and Mone-
tary Experts of equal or greater au-
thority.
The average man of affairs Law-
yer, Doctor, Editor, Tradesman, Mer-
chant or Mechanic freely admits his
incapacity to understand the "mys-
teries of finance," and frankly says:
"I don't know a damn thing about
it." Even Bankers and Brokers,
Financiers and Economists, whose
business it is to deal in and mani-
pulate these most remarkable com-
modities, will quite frequently make
the same honest confession of ignor-
ance. Indeed, the subject is common
stock in the jokesmith's workshop.
Mystery, Magic Failure.
In no other department of human
interest is so much mystery, confu-
sion and controversy regarding the
basic "facts" and assumptions, except
possibly institutional religion which,
avowedly, rests upon the miraculous
and supernatural. Indeed, the paral-
lelism between these two ancient ac-
tivities is curiously complete. Both
transcend human experience, and
neither submits to the tests of Sci-
ence weighing, measuring, cause-
and-effect experimental proof.
"Credit."
Like our religious forms, our Eco-
nomic System is hoary with age a
survival from ancient Babylonian cus-
20
TECHNOCRACY
toms. It rests on assumptions un-
sanctioned by science; its effects are
causeless; the miraculous supersedes
natural causation; mystery takes the
place of human reason; and endless
futurity is its heavenly storehouse of
all humanly desirable things.
A Thievish Process.
From this miraculous store the
"Wizard of Finance," with his wonder-
working wand "Credit" filches back
(for a slight ' present tangible con-
sideration and without the owners'
consent) the imagined products of
imagined future toil of unborn gen-
erations of workers a doubly thievish
process, as black in morals as in
magic.
"Money"
While supposedly representing life-
less things (that wear out by use),
"money" is conventionally endowed
(by financial magic) with everlasting
life, and also with life's unique func-
tion reproduction. So "Money
makes money" for ever and ever
for the Magician.
Peace, super-abundance, and endless
idleness "retirement from business"-
is "the Promised Land, flowing with
milk and honey" of Economic Saint-
hood the earthly Heaven of "Fi-
nance."
But . . ! Never was work
more urgent nor idleness less com-
mon; rjever was peace more scarce nor
strife so universal; the labor of future
generations has been crazily "mort-
gaged" by thievish "economic" (!)
conventions beyond all possibility of
redemption (in spite of the fact that
science and mechanics have multiplied
manifold the effectiveness and produc-
tiveness of present labor); and Man's
present vocation is social suicide the
destruction of w r ealth and the slaugh-
ter of his fellow men!
A stupendous and tragic record of
"Economic" folly and failure!.
The Mechanic's Philosophy Success.
The "God" of our nursery tradi-
tion has been banished from the Ma-
chine Shop and the world of Me-
chanics. The result of this courage-
ous spiritual Declaration of Indepen-
dence has been our "Conquest of Na-
ture," our Age of Productive Indus-
try.
Seemingly a like rending of thought
shackles, a similar breaking of mental
prison bars, is needed in the realm of
Economics.
When scientific imagination and
knowledge of Nature's Laws are sub-
stituted in our economics for chance,
mystery, and magic; when the regu-
lation of our Nation-wide industry is
taken out of the hands of quib-
b 1 i n g "lawyers", and nature's
forces, resources, and the mechanical
instrumentalities for their transforma-
tion into human necessaries and de-
sirables are no longer the play-things
of money-juggling gamblers, and the
products of Nature and Mechanic Arts
no longer glut the instinctive craving
of Acquisitive Cunning; when this
economic childish irrationality is
sanely substituted by organized
Science, Technology, and specialized
Skill co-ordinated in National Indus-
trial Management, then will begin real
civilization, the Age of Social Sanity,
Technocracy.
"Chance" Catastrophes.
The "God of Chance" or "God's
mysterious providence"- -which per-
mits the killing of a President by a
madman; the obliteration of a great
city by fire; the sinking of a huge pas-
senger-ship in mid-ocean; and a
world-war are merely misleading
euphemisms for human ignorance,
human improvidence, and childish
shirking of responsibility.
Social conventions our Economic
and Financial system which by
"money magic" make these "chance"
catastrophes into controlling factors
in the distribution of the product of
human effort, are simply tragic
monuments to ignorant superstition,
mental laziness, and criminal folly.
, Indeed, our whole "Economic Sys-
tem" is so incredibly unscientific,
so irrational, so utterly puerile,
that, were it not for custom-
induced mental myopia, its glaring
absurdities would long ago have suf-
ficed without a world-war to shock
our moral sense and intelligence into
effectivity.
"Chance" in Economics.
A machine is certain in action and
TECHNOCRACY
21
uniform in output, because scientific
imagination has foreseen, and con-
structive intelligence has provided for,
the elimination of the "chance" ele-
ment.
The forces which will devastate the
results of man's industry, through the
"natural" action of an uncontrolled
torrential stream, (with equal uncon-
cern) if scientifically directed, will
make the same country-side teem w r ith
human happiness but, not by
"chance." In like manner, the same
"natural" social forces which make
poverty, wretchedness, and vice, will
(with equal unconcern) produce the
opposite results but never by
"chance."
Human institutions founded upon
"chance" merely express Man's brute-
unintclligence. That our "Economic
System" makes "chance" a controlling
factor for the distribution of wealth,
merely shows the persistence of ignor-
ance and that old habits of thought
are more compelling than modern in-
telligence. To legalize "chance" delib-
erately is to relinquish our Godlike
control over the results of Nature's
processes, and thus voluntarily enslave
ourselves to ruthless Nature, and to
abandon even our authority over the
outcomes of our own actions. Hence,
it would seem, that the first step to-
ward a new and Rational Economics is
a courageous declaration of our free-
dom from tyranny of the insensate
"God of Chance."
Choice.
A\ hen a Mechanic has decided upon
an idea or principle as the basis of a
proposed machine, he has exercised his
rational freedom of choice. Regard-
less of whether his choice is wise or
not (in this decision) he has placed
definite limits upon the range of sub-
sequent selection in regard to detail
instrumentalities. Indeed, he has en-
tered into an implied contract as-
sumed a rational responsibility to em-
ploy only such means in the construc-
tion of his machine as (in accord with
Universal Order) are appropriate to
make effective his proposed mechanical
contrivance; with failure as the pen-
alty for wilful or ignorant error
breach of his implied contract.
History demonstrates conclusively
that races, nations, civilizations (equal-
ly with individuals), are subject to the
same rational limitations, are bound
by the same responsibility, and incur
the same penalty for wilful or ignorant
error in exercising their human free-
dom of choice.
Out Last Warning!
The practical difficulties of forestall-
ing the hazards of birth, of death, and
of disaster, are doubtless great, and
the problem of eliminating the
"chance" element from our economic
system is a man-sized job with a slim
probability of complete success. But,
it is reasonably certain, that, if courage
to make the needed change is lacking,
or if our intelligence is insufficient
for the task, our social adventure in
Democracy will prove a tragedy. And
the world war is, I believe, our last
warning.
Laisser Faire.
Nor may we drift; laisser faire is
lazy fear cowardly re-submission to
the dog-eat-dog jungle law, right-of
might principle of Nature and of Au-
tocracy from which our modern con-
science has revolted.
The Mechanic.
While caution bids us pause and
realize that Nature is ruthless in its
punishment of ignorance and error,
courage reminds us that Nature also is
infinitely lavish in its rewards for
knowledge and intelligence; and cour-
age points to the Practical Mechanic
as an exemplar and an object-lesson
for the Social Constructor.
Mechanic vs. Nature
The Mechanic has courageously in-
vaded Nature's guarded realm; has ac-
cepted her "no quarter" terms; and
has assumed complete responsibility
for his revolt against all the ancient
Occult Powers.
He has tacitly assumed that "God"
and "Nature" are supremely and pre-
eminently self-sufficing; that these all-
inclusive profundities utterly trans-
cend the utmost limits of his acts or
his art that the "plans of God" and
the Mechanic's problems cannot in
anywise conflict.
He predicates that "God" and "Na-
ture" are limitlessly competent to care
for their own infinite concerns; hence,
22
TECHNOCRACY
that his problems involve only what
the Mechanic wants, and not "the
wants of God." In so far as concerns
his art (and with reverence for Uni-
versal Order, which makes his art pos-
sible) the Mechanic, in effect, says:
"This I will," "Thus I do." "I am
the Earth-god of things, of matter,
and of motion."
The Mechanic's Achievements
And how gloriously has the Me-
chanic made good!
Even the most most cursory survey
of his accomplishments, in manufac-
ture, in transportation, in communica-
tion, in reclamation, in power utiliza-
tion generally, staggers while it exalts
the mind.
Has he not with wheat and corn
from Eastern steppe and Western
prairie, and with fresh and wholesome
meat from the Antipodes, fed the hun-
gry workers of Europe; and brought
from the four corners of the Earth
materials for their needs, their uses,
and their industries? Yes! And from
the teeming estuaries of the North he
has served the World's table with
dainty fish, and with wine and oil and
luscious fruit from the fertile valleys
of the Pacific Slope.
By his use of Nature's forces, he
has immeasurably out-rivalled imag-
ination's Magic Carpet, transporting
by his mechanisms untold millions of
work-weary families from cramped
and life-worn areas to the free spaci-
ousness of many wide scattered Edens
of plenty, there to found Empires.
And more, he has bound these
broadcast settlements in bonds of mu-
tual help with space-negating bands of
steel and steam; and on the one-time
pathless ocean he has marked out
highways with light and life of swift-
moving commerce, till, in the utter-
most ends "of the earth, friend greets
friend as though but a mile from
home. Seas no longer separate, nor
continents divide, for Man now talks
with Man as face to face across the
soundless void.
As with a broom, he has swept sul-
len ocean back to its deeps and bared
Netherland's fertile plains; and with
dyke, and mill, and pump he holds
his prize secure from angry wave and
wind and shifting sand. A prize in-
deed! a rich and prosperous country
of towns and villages, of farms and
homesteads, all interlr % .ed with road
and rail and placid water-way; a hive
of human industry a kingdom
snatched from ocean's grasp.
In torrid Egypt, too, he has tamed
the turgid Nile to flood the desert
sands and made thereof a nation's
granary.
He has moved mountains, split"
continents, harnessed Niagaras to his
machines; subdued the land, triumph-
ed over the sea, and now seeks do-
minion of the air.
And, East and West and North
and South he has sluiced and swept
with giant streams the high-piled
gravels, and ript and smashed and
ground to powder, fine as from the
mills of the gods, mountains of
crystalline quartz; and dredged, and
plowed, and sifted the frozen Arctic
tundra, to tear from reluctant Earth
its golden treasure for counters
wherewith to play Man's world-wide
commerce game.
The Economist's Failure.
All this stupendous output of hu-
man experience, human reason, hu-
man industry rivalling creation itself
is in startling contrast with our
world-wide tragedy, the outcome of
our world-wide economics. A con-
trast doubly significant; significant
in the entire absence of chance, of
mystery, of magic from the work of
the mechanvc; and again as expres-
sing the practical extremes of glori-
ous success and of failure most tragic.
Selective Rejection.
The human mind, like the body,
can advance only step by step, from
the solid ground of the known and
tested to the doubtful footing of the
unfamiliar. Human progress is like
adventuring through a _ morass of
ignorance toward a far-distant goal;
with disaster the penalty for every
false step.
In the great adventure called iu-
man Progress" the "Occult" has
proved a will-o-the-wisp guide.
Notwithstanding all the stupend-
ous accomplishments which charac-
terize productive industry and the
present era as the Age of Mechanics,
the process which has brought it all
about, is the same step-by-step-
TECHNOCRACY
23
proof by experiment scientific
method. We can think of the new
and unknown only in terms of the
old and familiar.
Still errors detected and fallacies
perceived are guides for inventive
synthesis construction.
Selection is but a process of in-
verted rejection. So having deter-
mined that our ideal social structure
is the antithesis of the Autocratic idea,
we may with confidence assume that
the characteristic elements of Auto-
cracy are inappropriate for our pur-
pose. Thus by a process of (selec-
tive) rejection we should arrive at
economic expedients more in har-
mony with our Social Ideal.
Democracy vs. Anarchy.
Universal Order is the key-note of
modern Science; and upon this order-
liness of Nature scientific thinking
is based. Hence, the much abused
phrases "human liberty" and "hu-
man freedom" cannot imply anarchy
or chaos, i. e. dis-order.
Liberty means absence of irrational
restraint.
Freedom of thought can have but
self-imposed limitations.
Social Freedom simply means lib-
erty for rational individual activity
tending to the accomplishment of
Community Purpose.
National Self-determination.
When a Nation exercising its
freedom of choice discards Autoc-
racy and selects Democracy as its
social principle it cannot sucessfully
retain the working elements of the
discarded social organization. If it is
to survive, it must adopt ways and
means and methods of life in con-
sonance with its chosen principle.
Our Futile Experiment.
The United States, like a novice
in Mechanics, has seemingly under-
taken the futile experiment of build-
ing an Industrial Democracy out of
the functional elements of Preda-
tory Autocracy. The natural result is
noise, friction and heat. And worse
a dangerously large proportion of
pur energy is wastefully expended
in constant readjustment to keep the
outfit running, and to prevent its
pounding itself into scrap. Prac-
tically the whole of our "Economic and
Financial System" is a left-over from
the days when absolutism and privilege
were universally accepted ideas and
ideals; and when magic-causation was
an unquestioned "fact." Quite natur-
ally our economic customs, conven-
tions and laws are in keeping with
these antiquated assumptions. Sub-
stantially our "Economics" is a ves-
tige, and as with other vestiges like
our vermiform appendix it is now
functionally useless, and frequently
causes much unnecessary pain and
trouble; which sooner or later may end
in tragedy.
Not All Bad.
While, in the foregoing, there is no
real cause for pessimism, there is even
less reason for happy-go-lucky optim-
ism.
Mentally reviewing this matter,
there appear several implications
which stand out clearly as definite
practical suggestions for economic re-
construction.
Suggestions for Reconstruction.
First: That "chance" means ignor-
ance.
The elimination of even the crudely
obvious "chance" factors from our
laws, customs and economic conven-
tions, would do away with much rank
injustice in our social functioning.
_ Second: That the onward flow of
time is not reversible the future can-
n*ot help the present.
A clear appreciation and practical
application of this seemingly axiom-
atic proposition would go far to rem-
edy the grosser evils of capitalistic
economics, and strip "money" and:
"credit" of their conventionally en-
dowed time-reversing magic.
In every physical human accom-
plishment, there are involved but
three factors or elements: raw Ma-
terial (Nature's free gift); human
Time; human Energy. Every product
(food, clothing, housing, transporta-
tion facilities, or what not), represents
a definite amount of past human time
and past human energy gone beyond
recall. Neither by ghostly hands nor
by flibber-gib financial conventions can
future work or future product be
yanked back into the present, to be
used for present purposes, or to meet
24
TECHNOCRACY
present emergencies even if self-re-
spect and common honesty did not suf-
fice to prevent such inexcusable cam-
ouflaged robbery of the helpless, the
quintessence of "taxation without rep-
resentation."
Third: That cause-and-effect, not
whim, is the order of Nature's pro-
cesses.
Science shows us that, so far as Man
is concerned, Nature is infinite poten-
tialities; potentialities realizable in
terms of individual and collective pur-
poses. We can if we will providing
our aims and objectives are in accord
with the Rational Order of Nature.
It is only in purposive action that
human freedom self-determination
is expressed.
An aimless man or a purposeless
"nation" is an equally insignificant
fragment of raw material in Nature's
Evolutionary and Devolutionary pro-
cesses. But, knowledge of Nature and
of Nature's Laws co-ordinated by Hu-
man Intelligence in rationally purpos-
ive actions, have all of Nature's in-
finite potentialities and stupendous
forces as tools to facilitate accom-
plishment.
Purposive Co-ordination.
Obviously the control of our Great
National Workshop the United States
should not be in the hands
of selfish Mr. Acquisitive Cunning
"who knows the price of everything
and the value of nothing" facile only
in getting something for nothing and
whose highest social ideal is: "To buy
cheap and sell dear"; but in reason,
in common horse sense! our purpos-
ive Industrial Democracy should be
guided ard directed by nationally or-
ganized and co-ordinated specialists in
all the branches of Skill, Technology,
and Science which are involved in its
Social Life and requisite to the suc-
cessful accomplishment of its Great
National Objective.
Fernwald, Berkeley, February, 1919.
IS THE ONWARD FLOW OF TIME REVERSIBLE
BY HUMAN CONVENTION?
Technocracy
PART IV.
Skill Economics for Industrial Democracy.
By William Henry Smyth
Note In the previous essays of this series the author shows that men's
characterizing activities express certain instincts or instinctive urges and
that human societies (nations) today consist of uncoordinated groups, each
bent upon gratifying its predominating instinctive urge at the expense
of other groups and regardless of the common weal. He proposes as a
remedy for this social strife a plan of National Co-ordination Technocracy.
This article discusses some of the important phases more in detail,
with constructive suggestions for the elimination of "chance," "mystery,"
and "magic" from our present economic processes, the substitution of
intelligent purposive ways and means for haphazard methods; and for
self-interested autocratic control, the substitution of Scientific Leadership
organized for the accomplishment of consensus National Objectives. Editor
Our Nationwide Machine Shop.
Attempting to make a robust man
conform to nursery usages and
swaddling clothes conventions would
be no more absurd than our present
efforts to conduct Twentieth Cen-
tury life on the Hunter and Sheep-
herder customs of our racial infancy.
Indeed, it would be less preposter-
ous than our continued efforts (de-
spite tragic experience) to have law-
yers and gamblers run our nationwide
Machine Shop by methods and under
conventions not differing essentially
from ancient Babylonish laws of King
Hamurabi and economic customs in
vogue two thousand years before
Christ.
Childish Economics.
Human society started with Brute-
force Economics, suitable to Cave-
man Hunter .and Fighter -- times.
Then humanity advanced through the
Pastoral animal breeder stage, be-
ing therein confronted, socially and
economically, with the awe-inspiring
marvel of phallic phenomena, the fear-
ful mystery of Death and the joy-
inciting miracle of Life life with its
seemingly endless sequence of pro-
duction and reproduction.
The Animal Breeder stage of de-
velopment, indeed, seems to have left
an indelible. impression; seems to have
peculiarly influenced man's mental
outlook and modified his thinking pro-
cesses so profoundly as to have
shaped even our modern business con-
ventions and daily practices or at
least to have provided favorable
psychic habitat for our conventional"
economic irrationalities.
Mysticism and Symbolism.
The mind-staggering miracle of
generation seems to have thrown
primitive human thinking back upon
itself in dazed befogment bewilder-
ment and mistunderstanding of Na-
ture's laws, out of which confusion of
thought emerged Mysticism with its
magic symbolism.
This mental chaos of mystic sym-
bolism the endowment of the sym-
bol (or "representative") with the
qualities and functions of the thing
symbolized is a primordial explana-
tory perversion which still character-
izes our commonplace thinking on
monetary matters. The "power of
money" is proverbial among us; and
that "money makes money" is axio-
matic to the average man; also that
"money makes the mare go," and that
it performs many other strenuously
animistic stunts.
Money, Mortgages and Nehemiah.
Down through the ages occasion-
ally we find (both in ecclesiastic and
lay writings) clearly reasoned repro-
bation of practices based upon this
naive misinterpretation of the facts of
Nature.
26
TECHNOCRACY
"The words of Nehemiah, the son of
Hacaliah" and cup bearer of Ar-
taxerxes, king of Persia, are as "mod-
ern" today as on the day they were
uttered nearly five hundred years
before Christ.
And they are as applicable to the
"civilized" world today as they were
to the kindergarten usages and anti-
social practices of our civilization's
nursery Mesopotamia.
"Some also there were that said,
We are mortgaging our fields and our
vineyards, and our houses: let us get
corn, because of the dearth. There
were some also that said, We have
borrowed money for the king's tribute
upon our fields and our vineyards. Yet
now our flesh is as the flesh of our
brethren, our children as their chil-
dren: and lo, we bring into bondage
our sons and our daughters to be ser-
vants, and some of our daughters are
brought into bondage already: neither
is it in our power to help it; for other
men have our fields and our vineyards.
"And I was very angry when I
heard their cry and these words.
"Then I consulted with myself, and
contended with the nobles and the
rulers, (or deputies) and said unto
them, Ye exact usury, every one of
his brother. And I held a great as-
sembly against them.
"And I said unto them, We after
our ability have redeemed our breth-
ren the Jews, which were sold unto the
heathen; and would ye even sell your
brethren? and should they be sold
unto us?
"Then held they their peace, and
found never a word.
"Also I said, The thing that ye
do is not good:
"And I likewise, my brethren and
my servants, do lend them money
and corn on usury. I pray you let
us leave off this usury.
"Restore, I pray you, to them, even
this day, their fields, their vineyards,
their olive yards, and their houses,
also the hundredth part of the money,
and of the corn, the wine, and the oil,
that ye exact of them.
"Then said they, We will restore
them, and require nothing of them;
so will we do, even as thou sayest.
'Then I called the priests, and took
an oath of them, that they should do
according to this promise.
Also I shook out my lap, and said,
So God shake out every man from
his house, and from his labor, that
performeth not this promise; even
thus be he shaken out, and emptied.
"And all the congregation said,
Amen, and praised the Lord.
"And the people did according to
this promise." (Nehemiah Chap. 5.)
Money, Reason and Rome.
Practical minded ancient Rome,
from whom we have learned so
much of pur work-a-day jurispru-
dence while retaining many other
gross superstitions seems to have
rejected this animistic pecuniary
absurdity, as is shown by the familiar
expression: Money does not procreate
money "Nummus nummum non
parit/'
Money, Sheep and Shylock.
The genius of Shakespeare realized
me fatuity of this pastoral-age-
founded pecuniary delusion that
"money breeds money" (which still
obsesses our misbegotten finance
conventions), and holds it up to de-
served ridicule:
(The Merchant of Venice Act 1
Scene 3.)
Shylock:
When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's
sheep
Antonio:
And what of him? Did he take
interest?
Shylock:
No, not take interest, not, as you
would say,
Directly interest: mark what
. Jacob did.
When Laban and himself were
compromised
That all the eanlings which were
streaked and pied
Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes,
being rank,
In the end of autumn turned to
the rams,
And, when the work of generation
was
Between these woolly breeders in
the act,
The skilful shepherd peel'd me
certain wands
And, in the doing of the deed of
kind,
He stuck them up before the fulsome
ewes,
Who then conceiving did in eaning
time
TECHNOCRACY
27
Fall parti-colored lambs, and those
were Jacob's.
This was a way to thrive, and he
was blessed:
And thrift is blessing, if men steal
it not.
Antonio:
This was a venture, sir, that Jacob
served for;
A thing not in his power to bring
to pass,
But sway'd and fashion'd by the
hand of heaven.
Was this inserted to make interest
good?
Or is your gold and silver ewes
and rams?
Shylock:
I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast:
Adolescent Economics.
Magic-Mystery tinged Breeder-
economics and vocational experience
(misinterpreted) quite naturally re-
sulted in Theocracy and Theocratic-
economics; and from Theocracy the
course is straight, the steps easy and
obvious to Working-by-proxy social
systems Privilege-economics as
represented by Autocracy, Aris-
tocracy, and modern Plutocracy.
Thus the race has successively
adopted Strength-economics, Cun-
ning-economics, and Cunning-Strong-
economics; each system appropriate
to the conditions of life and stage
of development, in the past.
Adult Economics.
Today is the day of Doer, Work-
er, Maker practical utilizer of
Nature by skill of hand and science-
taught brain the Mechanic.
This is an age of applied Science
the utilization of Nature's Laws and
forces - - consequently the earlier
mystic, _ predatory, and parasitic
economic usages and conventions are
now antiquated and impracticable.
Hence ^ they are beginning to revolt
our science-developed practical com-
mon sense, our sense of propriety,
and our modern sense of justice.
Furthermore, it is significantly in
accord with race experience, with
commonsense and with reason that:
Those whose activities characterize
the times, must initiate and adminis-
ter ats economics.
So if our Mechanistic Age, our
Democratic Dispensation is not to
prove a futile race experiment, a
will-o-the-wisp ideal, we must ini-
tiate Skill-economics, economics of
our Twentieth Century mechanis-
tically characterized activities eco-
nomics of the Scientist; of the Tech-
nologist, of the Mechanic, on a
nationwide scale, in other words:
National Industrial Management
Technocracy.
Skill Economics.
The Mechanic's philosophy as-
sumes: the neutral orderliness of
Nature; personal freedom; and per-
sonal responsibility for the outcome
of his acts.
The Mechanic's practice is based
upon: personal initiative; self- reli-
ance; and the validity of experience.
The Mechanic's success results
from: knowledge of Nature's laws;
experimental proof; and the elim-
ination of "chance."
It is reasonable, therefore, to
assume that upon these fundamentals
also must be framed our new work-
a-day Skill-economics, in order to be
workable in our work-a-day Mechan-
istic Age.
As applied to our present obso-
lescent economics these principles
imply:
Elimination of Magic (as a tacitly
assumed factor) in the means and
methods of production.
Elimination of Mystery from our
means and methods of exchanging
human efforts and resulting products.
Elimination of Chance from in-
dustrial organization and distribution.
Twixt Devil and Deep Sea.
Stated as generalities, few will
question the desirability of such
changes; for it will readily be con-
ceded that "chance," "mystery," and
"magic" are merely expressions of
ignorance clothed in old and familiar
superstitions. But, when one comes
truly to realize not just verbally
admit how completely magic, mys-
tery, and chance are woven into the
fabric of our modern life and
thought processes, then the true sig-
nificance of the propositions strikes
the mind with a sense of shock.
We are, indeed, between the devil
and the deep sea!
Radically change we must, or our
28
TECHNOCRACY
"Civilization" will go the way of
previous abortive social experiments
Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece,
Rome, Spain, and . . . Europe.
But, characteristically, the huge
majority of us would rather be
socially damned in the good old-
fashioned way, than accept social
salvation through radical change.
Yet, if human experience proves any-
thing, it demonstrates conclusively
that irrationality cannot persist in
the rational Order of Nature.
Chuck-a-Luck Economics.
Thus it will, perchance, be help-
ful to indicate some implications of
the suggested eliminations, by more
specific applications to present social,
economic and financial customs,
usages, and conventions.
Birth, Marriage, Death, are the
time-worn dice in our chuck-a-luck
economics.
Birth, in surroundings of wealth
or poverty on Fifth Avenue or in
the Bowery decides whether a child
shall be a Master or a Servant, an
owner or a slave, a nationally con-
trolling factor or one of a million
mere "cogs," regardless of inherent
fitness to the "chance" ordained
position, or to further the aims of
the community.
Marriage, under our quaint eco-
nomic conventions, decides into
whose hands shall be entrusted
power represented by vast accumula-
tions of wealth, regardless of the
chances that the easily acquired
wealth may be frivolously squan-
dered or used adversely to national
purposes.
Death, with sardonic irrelevance,
plays skittles with the lives of the
living; for our weirdly jocund "laws
of devise" empower dead hands
from the grave to control thousands
of living men's activities.
Makers and Takers.
Under our "economic and finance
system" to be born into our Mechan-
istic Age with mechanical and con-
structive traits dextrous hands, inge-
nious brain, and irresistible instinctive
urge to do, to work, to make the
things which constitute our "wealth"
is to be fore-doomed by "chance" to
lifelong obscurity, social impotence,
and relative poverty; while to be born
with instinctive acquisitive cunning
and insatiable greed, is to be elected
by "chance" to social distinction,
wealth and power.
Indeed, it would seem, that of all
the facts, circumstances, and incidents,
constituting present conditions of hu-
man life, "blind chance" has irration-
alty been selected as the controlling
factor in that antiquated collection of
queer customs, quaint conventions and
grotesque superstitions, that, with
childish fatuity, we call our "Science
of Economics and Finance."
Magic Ancient and Modern.
To gage the folly of earlier ages
by our own advance is an easy and
vanity satisfying diversion; to correct-
ly measure the ignorance and super-
stition of our own times is a hopeless
task.
Thus we look back with smiling con-
tempt upon Devil-raising, Soul-
selling, Fountain-of-youth, Witch's-
broomstick, and other wondrous para-
phernalia of "Black Art." And yet, no
essential difference exists between the
old witchcraft, by which a "magic po-
tion" added years to human life, and
modern "financial" black art which
gives everlasting life to inanimate
"capital" and endows lifeless "money"
with life's unique function reproduc-
tion so that "money makes money"
for ever and ever. Indeed, of the two
the modern magic causation is the
more crudely illogical and unscientific;
for while the ancient black art only
purported to prolong life already ex-
isting, modern financial magic pre-
tends to perform the still greater
miracle of infusing life into inanimate
objects!
Do I seem to exaggerate?
Then read what Economic High
Priest Boehm-Bawerk says in his
"Capital and Interest A Critical His-
tory of Economic Theory"; says seri-
ously, supremely uncon-scious that he
is describing a crazily impossible mir-
acle a miracle, however, in which
there is a substantially universal con-
sensus of ignorant .belief.
"And finally it (interest) flows to
the capitalist without ever exhausting
the capital from which it comes, and
therefore without any necessary limit
to its continuance. It is, if one may
use such an expression about mundane
things, capable of an everlasting life.
TECHNOCRACY
29
Thus it is that the phenomenon of in-
terest as a whole presents the remark-
able picture of a lifeless thing produc-
ing an everlasting and inexhaustible
supply of goods."
Was ever gross superstitious ignor-
ance or "black art" more crassly
at variance with facts and Nature's
Laws or the Sciences of Physics and
Mechanics, than this self-filling "magic
purse" of financial wizardry?
Time Turned Tailward!
If there is one fact in human ex-
perience, the validity of which is be-
yond question, it is that the onward
flow of Time is non-reversible, the fu-
ture cannot help the present.
We can change the direction of mo-
tion in physical things back up a
horse, a train, or a boat, or even in
some instances reverse the flow of a
river; but to turn back the inexorable
forward march of Time is unthinkable.
To suggest shooting the Germans
with future bullets and feeding out-
soldier boys with future food substi-
tuting "future savings" (!) of future
generations for present savings and
present work, seems to a Mechanic-
like the insane imaginings of a magic-
crazed brain.
Yet, these are the stupendous mir-
acles which the "magic of finance" se-
riously purports to accomplish for a
small present consideration.
Do I seem to exaggerate?
Then read the serious proposal of
Financial Wizard Frank A. Vander-
lip, President of the National City
Bank of New York.
'This war must be financed, not out
of past savings, but out of future sav-
ings. Future savings are for the mo-
ment not available and some other
device must therefore be brought into
play. That device is bank credit, and
this loan and subsequent loans will in
the main be floated through an expan-
Ision of credit."
Truly human credulity is limitless
or the day of witchcraft and miracles
is not past!
Futilities of Magic.
Never in one solitary instance, in all
the hundreds of years and millions of
sacrificial victims, did entrails of
slaughtered animals foretell a future
happening; never did any of the armies
of Devils and "familiar spirits," in-
voked by magic incantations, effect
any earthly result w r hich would not
otherwise have occurred; never was
solitary grain of gold transmuted from
base metal by the magic of the
myriads of guaranteed "Philosopher's
Stones"; never did any of these mir-
acles happen except in the distorted
imaginings of the simple ones who
paid the Magicians for their futilities.
And the poor boobs who "paid the
piper" didn't know any more about
magic then, than the average man of
today who frankly asserts: "I don't
know a damned thing about Econom-
ics and Finance."
"Future Savings"!
Recalling practical warlike Rome,
fighting her world-conquering battles
or refraining from attack on the au-
gury of fowl's entrails; remembering
philosophical Greece conducting her
civil, military, and economic affairs up-
on the assumed guidance of similar
irrationalities; not forgetting that in
comparatively recent times, by "sell-
ing indulgences,"- dealing in "future
savings," "treasures in heaven," i. e.,
"floating (super-mundane) credit"-
and by commerce in other optimistic
and supposititious commodities, "the
Church" acquired legal ownership to
over half of the land and wealth of
England; not overlooking the fact that
by similar supposititious means mod-
ernized, the Mormon Church of the
Latter Day Saints has become one of
the wealthiest and socially most pow-
erful capitalistic corporations in our
midst today; calmly and dispassionate-
ly turning these facts over in the
mind, causes one to pause and reflect.
Indeed, mentally reviewing this ages
long and unquestionable historical ev-
idence, one embued with modern
scientific notions begins to wonder.
Questions and Doubts.
One wonders how "dollars" or
"debts" can be magically endowed
with life?
How magically endowed with "ever-
lasting life?"
How magically endowed with the
capability of unending reproduction?
-"a lifeless thing producing an ever-
lasting and inexhaustible supply of
goods."
30
TECHNOCRACY
And thus wondering, one questions
and doubts. . . .
Can it be that the "miracles of fi-
nance" and the "magic of credit" are
of a piece with the ancient miracles and
magic? only, (in keeping with the
h. c. 1.) gone up in cost to the simple
ones who pay for the "miraculous"
performances.
But what a co.t!
Distribution.
Science and Mechanics have multi-
plied manifold the productive effect of
human effort during the past century,
so that the resulting products and in-
strumentalities of production have in-
creased in like ratio.
So the question naturally arises as
to what disposition has been made
of this great aggregation of National
Commissariat Stores in the United
States under our alleged "economic"
system?
How have the "Financiers" our
book-keepers kept tab on the "debits
and credits"?
How have they (numerically less
than one per cent) distributed this
product of the combined work of the
twenty million families that, in round
numbers, constitute (the other ninety-
nine per cent of )the population?
The Balance Sheet.
In round numbers the books show:
$250,000,000.000 "wealth" ;
$70,000,000,000 gross "profits"; di-
vided:
$50,000,000,000 "income" to the
book-keepers;
$20.000,000,000 "wage" to the fam-
ilies;
$1,000 average family "wage."
Thus the balance sheet shows that
the self-selected and socially irrespon-
sible score-keepers the "Financiers"
-have apportioned the gross yearly
"profits" of the United States National
Industrial Enterprise in the ratio of
five-sevenths to themselves and two-
sevenths to the 20 million families.
"Business" and Instincts.
In the jargon of "Business," "the
Financiers" "charge" fifty billion dol-
lars ($50,000,000,000) yearly for "fi-
nanciering" the United States.
That is to say: "The Interests" as-
sess the People of the United States
fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000)
"interest" tribute yearly, in perpetuity,
for permitting the people the privilege
of practicing national honesty and
for the magic of (mysteriously con-
ventionalized) "Credit."
In other words: "The Capitalists"
tax the People of the United States
fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000)
yearly for permitting the People the
privilege of utilizing the Nation's hu-
man and other natural resources and
for (the miracles of) "Capitalization."
^ In simple terms of human instincts:
The Instinctive Takers take the In-
stinctive Makers' makings for permitt-
ing the Makers to make the Nation's
natural raw materials into desirable
commodities.
Feeding and Breeding.
The families must, of course, be
UMJ clothed and housed, and the
children schooled, or the supply of
Makers would soon peter out.
, F L these unavoidable necessities
Financiers" allow, on an average
thousand dollars a year per family-
bare living wage" in exchange for
a whole year of the brief work-life
(of twenty odd years), for life-energy
irrecoverably used up in making the
wealth; wealth out of which bare sus-
tenance is all that goes to its Makers.
Worse and More of It.
Nor is this all, nor the worst.
It deals with things only, now in
existence. And it refers to an appor-
tionment of the gross "profits" ar-
nved at (more or less) by our own
consent.
But, by the wondrous working of
Credit" -the "Financiers" have ' vir-
tually pawned (in their own pawn
shop) the whole Industrial World!
The "Financiers" have placed a per-
petual mortgage plaster of at least one
thousand billion dollars ($1,000,000,-
000,000) on the work and products of
unborn generations of the hundred
million families constituting the
"White World."
The "Financiers" have chained thus
a $10,000 debt, paying "interest" trib-
ute of $2.00 per day (for ever) upon
the back of each and every family in
the "civilized world"- a perpetual
thraldom of debt; debt secured by
"Bonds," by "Mortgage," by "Capi-
TECHNOCRACY
3!
talization" and by "National Debt"
conventions.
The "Financiers" have thus placed
this huge mortgage debt (in perpet-
uity) upon future generations with-
out their consent the most stupend-
ous case of tyrannous "taxation with-
out representation" in all the dark
ages long tragic experience of long
suffering humanity.
What petty "Pikers" were the Shy-
locks of old Nehemiah's day compared
to our . . . our . . . "Financiers"^.
Crowning Paradox.
Poverty is the opposite of riches;
debt the negation of wealth; bank-
ruptcy the reverse of solvency; they
are antithetical the plus and minus
signs of human interaction in the
world of "Business."
A modern man, by the aid of scienti-
fic and mechanistic instrumentalities,
accomplishes more today than one-,
two-, and in some cases ten-score men
of a hundred years ago; so, despite
war and every other destructive
agency, production outstrips bare
need today as at no time in the past.
The world is constantly increasing
its total products.
Yet, notwithstanding these facts,
the richer the world grows, the more
it owes both relatively and actually;
the greater its wealth, the deeper it
is plunged in debt.
Thus, under the regime of capitalis-
tic "High Finance," is achieved the
crowning paradox of all time the
acme of miraculous causation:
The functions of plus and minus are
reversed; more is less! The larger
a thing grows the smaller it becomes!
The more efficient men get, the less
effective relatively is the outcome!
The faster the world cistern is filled
with wealth the more nearly empty
it is, the more completely is the
White World bankrupt!!
The ancient miracle of "the
widow's cruse" is inverted by mod-
ern Financial Magic.
An Old Delusion.
Now it is not intended to impute
deliberately dishonest or intentionally
unethical methods to our Financiers
and Capitalists, under a vague and
metaphorical term, "Magic." On the
contrary, I use the word "magic" in
its ordinary meaning supernatural
effects.
I am convinced that the great ma-
jority of us capitalist and laborer
alike are still obsessed with the fal-
lacy of magic causation; an ancient
delusion that has dominated men's
minds and befogged their thinking
from the very beginning of man's
efforts to explain the causes of un-
usual happenings.
"Magic" is the oldest and easiest
way to account for strange things,
and still holds its ancient sway over
men's minds outside the laboratory
of the scientist and the workshop of
the mechanic.
Elimination of this fallacy as a con-
trolling factor in the distribution of
products wealth is a necessary step
toward a rationally workable eco-
nomic system; a system adapted to
20th Century life and the mental at-
titude of our science-made Mecha-
nistic Age.
Mystery.
"Chance" implies insufficient knowl-
edge of causes.
"Magic" implies misinterpretation
of causes.
"Mystery" implies inherent un-
knowableness of causes.
While increasing knowledge tends
ever toward minimizing the "chance"
element and lessening of "magic"
errors, mystery presents a different
problem.
The laboratory, or the factory, or
the workshop, or the countinghouse,
is no place for "mystery," for to
the workers therein mystery means
ignorance lack of intelligence. In
human life at large, it is quite other-
wise as concerns the essential All-
inclusive Mystery and religious mys-
ticism. This is a fact of profound
significance in relation to the larger
aspect of our "Social Problem."
Our new Skill Economics, there-
fore, may not discourage man's in-
nate love of mystery, his inborn re-
ligious spirituality nor curb the
spirit which tempts him to adventure
courageously into the unknown; but
instead should provide advantageous
scope for its personal expression.
But as in the machine shop
"mystery" is out of place in finance;
out of place because the function of
32
TECHNOCRACY
"money" in an economic system cor-
responds to the purposes of checks
and gauges, templets and measuring
instruments of the technologist and
the mechanical constructor.
The essentials of such devices are
accuracy, certainty, invariability the
antitheses of the qualities of mys-
tery.
Yet in no branch of human activity
are its measuring devices so incon-
sistent, contradictory, inaccurate; so
mysteriously variable, so subject to
anti-social self-interested control as
are those of the Financier his twin
mysteries, "Money" and "Credit."
Our Queer Dollar.
One of the many quaint functions
of the dollar is that of a "standard
of value." As a matter of fact, no
one knows or can determine from
moment to moment, what is the
value of a dollar. We only know
that its worth is diminishing, vari-
ously, to the vanishing point.
Neither the Nation nor the Mone-
tary Experts, nor the Professors of
Economics, nor the Financiers, nor
the Interests, nor the Capitalists, nor
the Common Man, have ever suc-
ceeded in fixing our "standard of
value" standardizing the value of
our "standard of value" the worth
of our Dollar.
Mr. Worker contends that the con-
traction of the dollar is due to ex-
pansion in the cost of living; so he
strikes for more dollars, and effects
another shrink. Mr. Trader says the
contraction is due to the expansion
of wages; so he boosts up the price
of products, and effects still another
contraction. And so on and on, and
the end is not yet!
Indeed, there are as many different
explanations of this mysterious
""spooky" phenomenon in our
"Standard" almost as there are ex-
plainers and their number is legion.
An Elastic Foot Rule!
If our foot-rule were subject to
similar mysterious fluctuations, its
length would have increased to a
yard or more in the past five years,
with innumerable variations from
time to time.
Imagine the chaos, had such a mys-
teriously variable standard of mea-
surement been used in the machine
shop!
The stress of War conditions has
so completely demonstrated the in-
utility of our mysteriously elastic so-
called "standard of value and medium
of exchange" that it is now virtually
in the discard, stacked up uselessly
in private and in national treasury
vaults.
Our alleged "standard of value and
medium of exchange" never was a
standard of value, and now it is not
even a medium of exchange. Quaint,
but true!
A practically costless, hence un-
varying, "medium of exchange" a
one-function money is another much
needed step toward a rational eco-
nomic system.
Credit.
But if our money is a mysterious
commodity, what shall be said of
"Credit"?
"Money" i.e., "gold coin of the
United States of the present standard
of weight and fineness"- even though
lacking in practical utility, is at least
a physical commodity. It occupies
space (however uselessly) ; it has
color, weight, length, breadth and
thickness, it possesses physical char-
acteristics easily determinable by
scientific tests.
Not one of these facts is applicable
to "Credit."
"Credit" is a state of mind, a
psychological condition hypnosis a
mesmeric dream. Naturally it lacks
all the qualities of physical things,
and possesses all those of phan-
tasms. A man dreams he is wealthy,
and for all dream purposes he is
wealthy; even though in actual fact
he is dying of starvation in squalor
and want.
So too, in like manner, a nation
dreams itself some (or many) billions
of additional wealth; sets the print-
ing presses going to record the
dream in "bonds"; and forthwith
becomes billions wealthier (in its
mind), though, as a matter of fact,
the physical wealth may have shrunk
to the danger point of general in-
digence and starvation.
This is the danger-fraught "World
condition" today.
'ECHNOCRACY
33
Boundless Credit Wealth
Seemingly human stupidity is lim-
itless and human credulity infinite!
This boundless, unweighable, unmea-
surable, hope-created dream-stuff
("Credit") is sliced and apportioned,
like beef or butter, and sold in the
market place by self-appointed pur-
veyors of public optimism.
Yes! Sold and exchanged for the
limited, measurable, physical prod-
ucts of sweaty and grimy toil and
strenuous human effort.
Like all other dreams and dream-
stuff. ''Credit" visions know no
bounds but those of desire. Millions
or billions or scores of billions it's
all the same in the wonderland
dreamworld of "Finance": wish them
and dream them, and presto! they
exist. They exist: dream ships,
dream cannons, dream food irides-
cent wealth bubbles blown up and
"floated through an expansion of
credit," as proposed by Finance Wiz-
ard Vanderlip-.
Dream Wealth.
It is not surprising therefore that
in the wonderland of Finance this
dreamworld's dream wealth "Credit"
as represented by "credit instru-
ments," i. e., stocks, bonds, mortgages,
national debts, etc. transcends great-
ly the workaday world's physical
utilities real wealth.
But what is going to happen when
we are jolted awake to the rationality
of workaday reality, and dream
visions vanish; when the airy
floating credit bubble bursts as bub-
bles do? When Germany and Austria
follow Russia's (Bolshevik) example,
and France follows Germany, and
then England, and then . . . ?
Then what?
When this happens, the world will
discard the silly delusion that time is
I reversible by financial magic credit;
"credit," the greatest of all myths and
magic makebelieves by which cunning
men in all ages have sought- to get
something for nothing.
In all the historically recorded cases
of collective human delusions from
practical Rome's entrail augury to
shrewd Yankee Salem's witchcraft
there is none which surpasses, in col-
lective crass credulity, our great Credit
Myth!
A national (non-tribute) bookkeep-
ing system equitably to determine real
ownership of the products of effort,
is a much needed economic conven-
ience.
Experimental Science.
It would seem that with the advent
of Experimental Science occurred an
epoch in the history of our Race; an
epochal event to which none other
is comparable, except possibly the ac-
quisition of Self-consciousness itself.
Indeed it would seem that these two
super-significant events so unthink-
ably far apart in time are, in essence,
closely related.
By coming to Self-consciousness
the Brute became Man potentially,
though not actually, a self-determining
being.
By the coming of Science based
upon the idea of the rationality and
neutrality of "nature"- -potential Free-
dom ceased to be a mere possibility
and became a realizable Ideal.
To Make or Break Shackles.
Science and Technology are, how-
ever, but tools in Man's hands; tools
wherewith to make effective Man's
transcendent privilege: Freedom of
Choice.
Groups of men (like Germany) may
use these great instrumentalities to
forge social shackles upon themselves,
and upon Humanity the bondage of
autocracy.
Or, they may use them to make hu-
man Liberty effective, as is the ideal
of the United States.
Human beings, whether as individ-
uals, or as groups, or as nations, are
"free" self-determining only w T hen
purposively initiative; for it is only
in purposive action that liberty can be
expressed.
Freedom, then, means will to intelli-
gent self-expression liberty ex-
pressed in rational accomplishment.
"Reconstruction."
On all the foregoing considerations,
our problem of "Social Reconstruc-
tion" on a scientific basis implies sys-
tematizing our great but inchoate Na-
tion upon economic principles appro-
priate to an Industrial Democracy.
The basis of modern industry being
scientific knowledge of nature's laws
whereby nature's resources are made
available for human use and enjoy-
34
TECHNOCRACY
ment through the aid and agency of
technical skill, "Reconstruction" be-
comes essentially a process of selec-
tive rejection of present inappropriate
economic usages; discarding customs
which unduly facilitate the acquisitive
instincts, and substituting others
which tend to minimize social ob-
stacles to the freer expression of the
constructive or industrial instincts
in the interest of the commonweal.
As industrial processes involve spe-
cialized skill and expert technical
training, made effective by intelligent
co-ordination, it is clear that a hu-
manly efficient Industrial Democracy
necessitates leadership by those who
possess the requisite knowledge, skill,
and technical training.
So, when we speak of Industrial De-
mocracy, what we really mean is:
Nation-wide Industry managed by
Technologists a Nation of free and
socially equal workers, scientifically
organized for mutual benefit and uni-
fied purpose a Technocracy.
Suggestions.
By way of summary, a few of the
more obviously inappropriate present
usages which, seemingly with advan-
tage, we might consign to the limbo
of outworn social expedients, here fol-
low:
(I) Discard usages founded on the
autocratic idea of "the State";
Substitute therefor in fact as well
as in theory others resting upon the
self-evident right of a man to inalien-
able and complete pwnership of him-
self; hence (in effect) inalienable own-
ership of the industrial product result-
ing from the functioning of his mind
and body limited only by others'
equal right.
(II) Discard conventions resting
upon the parasitic idea that (legal)
possession is equivalent to production:
Substitute natural ownership based
on making for conventions that legal-
ize taking.
(III) Discard institutions legaliz-
ing "chance" as a controlling factor
for the distribution of things;
^ Substitute therefor collective fore-
sight based upon experience; and hu-
man need for instinctive animal greed
-in the interest of the commonweal.
(IV) Discard "financial magic"
practices resting upon the animistic
fallacy that inanimate objects can (by
convention) be endowed with life's-
unique function reproduction;
Substitute others on the evidential
fact that only human beings can make
usefully available the things we call
"wealth."
(V) Discard the "mysteries of fi-
nance" in wealth distributing pro-
cesses the private purveying of pub-
lic optimism for gain and the "man-
ufacture of credit" for sale;
Substitute therefor a community
(national) bookkeeping system, in
which figures clearly tell what each
individual and each group has added
to the common stock.
(VI) Discard institutions resting
upon the erroneous notion that con-
ventional symbols, i. e., "representa-
tives" of wealth, "bonds," "credit,"
"capital," etc. are equivalent to and
can perform the functions of the in-
strumentalities they "represent," and
can continue so to function long after
the instrumentalities have ceased to
exist or have become obsolete;
Substitute others making -the use-
rent of things, i. e. "usury," "interest,"
correspond to and be contingent upon
the effective worth and the continued
usefulness of the things rented.
(VII) Discard customs based upon
mystic symbolism and the animistic
fallacy that "money" can perform the
functions of the life-energy or pro-
ducts "represented";
Substitute a costless one-function
national check medium of exchange.
(VIII) Discard "business" practices
based upon the anti-social dictum
that: "one man's misfortune is an-
other's opportunity";
Substitute therefor the proposition
that: the illhaps of unavoidable social
hazards and chance favors of good
fortune should (in social effect) be
equally shared by all.
(IX) Discard all institutions and
conventions facilitating the function-
ing of anti-social predatory and para-
sitic instincts;
Substitute others tending to en-
courage willing self-interested co-
operation energized by national unity
of purpose.
(X) Discard the strife inducing in-
stitutions of erroup industries based
upon the hunger-slavery idea of em-
ployer and employee organized for
mechanistic human efficiency in output
of products for purely private profit;
TECHNOCRACY
35
Substitute others based upon ra-
tional human initiative and develop-
ment with the aid of all the resources
of the Nation, co-ordinated for the
commonweal under the management
of Scientific Leadership to accomplish
a. consensus National Objective.
Save Civilization!
\Vhether these proposed changes
are effectively workable or are only
"visionary," "impracticable," "Utopian
dreams," is, of course, debatable; but
there can be no question regarding
the truth of the solemn warning of
Lloyd George: "Civilization, unless we
try to save it, may be precipitated
and scattered to atoms."
Responsibility.
That our Civilization is in danger of
Toeing "shattered to atoms," raises the
question of culpability for the present
ominous state of affairs, and hence
of responsibility for averting the
threatened outcome.
The Masses cannot be held respon-
sible, for they are simply impelled by
their instinct "to live"; they do not
think, they do what is much more im-
portant: they breed. Their magnifi-
cent all-inclusive social function is re-
production. Hence, they feel feel
hunger, feel passion they feel with
all the vital energy of the race.
Thus, when social conditions be-
come unbearable or threaten their vital
function, they reflex with unrestrained
ferocity against such conventional re-
straints to the natural expression of
their instinctive urges.
The Skilled Artisans cannot be held
responsible, for they are merely obey-
ing the instinct "to make." Their
mental activity is analogous to and
for the same social purpose as the
cycle of brain functioning that pro-
duces the mathematical cell of the bee,
the carpentry of the beaver, and the
nest building of the bird.
The Employers cannot be held re-
sponsible, for they only express the
instinct "to control," 'the Mastery in-
stinct an urge which could not be
satisfied unless others willingly sub-
mitted to domination. Their social
function is to energize to counteract
human inertia for the preservation
of the Race.
The Financiers cannot be held re-
sponsible, for they only reflex the in-
stinct "to take," the urge to hoard,
like and for the same social pur-
pose as the hoarding of the squir-
rel or the honey storing of the bee.
They probably are least imaginative
of all. Their social function is con-
servation, the converse of progressive
theorizing.
Typically, none of these social ele-
ments think; think in the sense of the
imaginative pioneer theorizing of cre-
ative thought seeking for truth apart
from its immediate application to self-
preservation searching with spiritual
insight for paths into the unknown to
be later trod by careless earth-bound
feet.
The Scientist is in a different cate-
gory. Characteristically he lacks the
instinctive urges which distinguish the
other elements of human society.
But, it is his social function to think.
He does think he has functioned
with a vengeance!
One of the results of his high-
pressure thinking is that: "Civilization
may be shattered to atoms" or Hu-
manity raised to Godlike heights, by
Science.
While it is quite questionable
whether Science, so far, has proved a
blessing or a curse to Humanity,
there can be no doubt that its poten-
tialities in either direction are limit-
less. Praiseworthy or culpable, as the
case now stands, responsibility for the
outcome rests squarely upon the
shoulders of the Scientist.
National Leadership.
Notwithstanding appearances to the
contrary popular unrest, growth of
socialism, spread of I. W. W.-ism,
the whirlwind of Bolshevism and
other terrifying upsurgings of de-
structive Massism the "Masses" do
not desire to lead, do not seek "pro-
letarian dictatorship."
Human herds have always followed
leaders, like other gregarious animals;
followed their leaders willingly, blind-
ly, thoughtlessly.
The herd will follow till following
becomes vitally dangerous, threatens
its social life hinders the normal
functioning of its instinctive urges to
growth and reproduction.
Nations have followed the leader-
ship of Autocracy till starved white
by plundering conventions or bled
white by wars.
Nations have followed the leader-
ship of Theocratic Mystics into
36
TECHNOCRACY
mental chaos, and confusion of human
ideals and social purpose.
And we today, with sheeplike docility,
have followed Plutocratic leadership
into a social morass of crazy financial
conventions, till the raising of families
has become an unbearable burden, an
impossible social handicap; till the
opportunity to work is a dubious
privilege; till the future of the worker
and breeder the proletarian offers
only a soul shriveling bondage of de-
basing and inescapable debt!
Modern Manhood's Mandate.
The present "World condition"
means only that the proletariat has
balked, revolted, at this sordid threat
to the sanity and the sanctity of
Human existence.
The "World condition" is a World
Cry! a cry not for Proletarian Dic-
tatorship, nor for Mob Rule, but for
new Leaders.
The World demands new Leaders!
Not new and more "efficient" slave
drivers Trust Barons, or Kings of
Commerce, or Emperors of Finance.
The Modern World demands mod-
ern Leaders, Men! Men with ideas
that rise higher than swapping jack-
knives even in carload or shipload
lots.
The "World condition" expresses
this demand by modern men for mod-
ern leaders, leaders with modern spir-
itualized ideals.
Our "Social Unrest" is a demand for
torch-bearers and pathfinders to social
freedom of opportunity; a demand for
leaders with luminous imagination to
visualize our War-born Nation's de-
sired Peace Goal; leaders with scien-
tific knowledge to realize and actualize
the rational aspirations, ambitions,
and ideals of free modern American
Manhoood.
Scientist
vs.
Auto-, Theo-, and Pluto-crat
While the Autocrat, the Theocrat,
and the Plutocrat, are decadent
products of outworn ways and obso-
lescent materialistic manners of think-
ing, the Scientist, on the contrary, is
the most modern development of
modern intelligence, modern ideals,
and modern spiritualized modes of
thought.
The Scientist is essentially a pioneer,
a pathfinder, a torch bearer, a seeker
after Truth and Rationality.
The Scientist is the modern re-
ligionist, the priest of selfless Truth:
Truth which grows with Man's
growth and luminously emerges with
the purifying of human Intelligence:
Truth that all-inclusive Something
behind the physical facts of nature
which makes for Right for mechan-
ical, for personal, for ethical, for
spiritual, for social righteousness the
ultimate Unifying Ideal.
Truly, "the stone which the builders
rejected is become the head of the
corner": the keystone of the social
arch.
Rational Leadership.
The Scientist is, seemingly, our one
best, if not our only hope for Rational
Leadership.
Then, too, the Scientist by un-
leashing the limitlessly powerful nat-
ural forces, in uncoordinated, haphaz-
ard science - made instrumentalities
has got us into much of our present
social muddle.
So it is up to the Scientist to lead
us out; or at least, to harness for
human service the science-created
non-moral mechanistic monster that
he has liberated.
Guideless and Aimless!
But if the Scientist shirks this great
task, if he lacks the desire for, or
the courage of, or the will to Leader-
ship; if for any reason he evades this
obvious responsibility, or is daunted
by its obvious difficulties . . . then
indeed, blindly plunging deviously on-
ward guideless and aimless -"our
Civilization may be precipitated and
shattered to atoms," and our Indus-
trial Democracy adventure prove a
World Tragedy.
Yes! the most pathetic of all human
tragedies futility.
Lacking: Purpose.
Our Nation of great expectations,
of magnificently vague hopes and stu-
pendous possibilities, (if^ nothing
worse happens), will slump into futile
pottering desuetude, lacking inspiring
purpose to live for, lacking worthy
achievement to work for, lacking
worthwhile goal to strive for, lacking
a Great National Objective.
Fernwald, Berkeley, March 20, 1919.
Working Explosively
A Protest Against Mechanistic Efficiency
By William Henry Smyth
(Reprinted from Industrial Management, January, 1917.)
We all know the Explosive Worker
type and generally recognize him with
disapproval.
The trouble with working explo-
sively is that the individual addicted to
this character of activity won't fit into
any decently organized scheme of pro-
duction. He's a sort of human bomb-
shell lacking a timer. So he "goes
off" at any old time, day or night
always unexpectedly with the utmost
disregard to sensitive nerves and es-
tablished conventions.
In the family he's the juvenile
"problem"; in school, the hopeless im-
possible! and in the shop, the idlest
of idle apprentices (with a big ?). In
the factory, he's the man one is always
going to discharge, but ... Or
he's our Boss, who is "a Holy Ter-
kror."
Working Explosively.
There are but two places for the
Explosive Worker to land at the top
or at the bottom. And, characteris-
tically he's rapid in getting there.
Still worse, when true to type, he is
disconcertingly apt to reverse his lo-
cation from time to time, whether top
or bottom, with the speed of a light-
ning change artist.
The Efficiency Expert has no place
for the Explosive Worker except in
his vocabulary of dynamic expletives
and fulminative epithets.
Of course, all this refers to the typ-
ical Exploder; but, curiously enough,
each one of us at times looks back
with self-hugging secret joy to occa-
sions and experiences of working ex-
plosively in our own otherwise hum-
drum career. And, reflecting, realizes
with some surprise that these stand
luminously out as our really worth
while adventures life's decisive bat-
tles.
Such reminiscences, and the feelings
evoked, jolt one into thinking to
wondering. . . .
Work Is Human.
There appears to be, nay, there
surely is, something amazingly hu-
manly human about working explo-
sively. We feel that there is truly
something warm, vital, hot-blooded,
about this sort of activity which is
lacking in the efficient routine of eight-
hours-a-day work at so-much per.
In fancy we flit backward and aban-
donedly re-erupt our own little ex-
plosions. . . . Eight hours! Pah!
Twenty-four is all too short! Hours!
Days! What are they to the Explo-
sive Worker during eruption. Mere
irrelevant astronomical incidents.
But, with a sigh returning to here
and now from memory's fecund
realm, where we too forged vibrant
dreams most strenuously into things
of beauty, worth and substance, paint-
ed with comets' tails, playing skittles
with time and space (Oh magic state,
wherein all work is play, and play
means working explosively!) there
still remains that work-a-day remind-
er, the vivid impression, potent intui-
tion, the "hunch" of discovery, so sug-
gestive of revelation in its flash-like
clarity.
And this is the "hunch":
Essence of Living.
Explosive Working? Why, explo-
sive activity is not "working" at all!
It is the essence of living. Life itself!
"Efficient" working and working ex-
plosively are wholly and essentially
different matters of experience.
"Efficient" working expresses obedi-
ence to the outside pressure of brute
mechanistic Nature in the struggle to
survive.
Working Explosively is inner life
insistent of self-expression, the willful
impulse of vital personality in raptur-
ous culmination, realizing life the joy
of being expressed in doing. God-like
spontaneity.
38
WORKING EXPLOSIVELY
One means Compulsion; the other
Freedom.
Routine working is an efficient
means to an indefinitely desirable end.
Explosive Working is an end in itself,
regardless of outcome. The very joy
of working. Self realization.
One suggests Force and Mechanism;
the other, Life and Liberty.
In one we function, contract, and
serve a purpose; in the other we live,
expand, dominate. In one we work
by necessity as more or less efficient
"elements" in a mighty but cold and
incomprehensible machine; in the
other I am the living IT Earth-God
of things, of matter, and of motion
the Mechanician.
Is Human Problem.
This issue involves no mere moot
or academic distinction, about which
idle men may split dialectic hairs or
bandy fluent phrases to fill a vacant
hour. Profoundly is it otherwise, for
it touches closely on the deepest and
most significant of all human prob-
lems the eternal paradox of freedom.
At bottom it is this question of human
worth as against human productive ef-
ficiency which is being fought out in
the World-conflict today and not
alone in the spectacular European
tragedy.
So much for the "hunch." And now
for the questions which it raises.
These are many tough conundrums,
which I have no intention of now at-
tempting to answer.
Here is one, by way of example:
Is the ultimate outcome of mechan-
istic efficiency humanly desirable? Is
the Art of Efficiency itself efficientr
Clearly, there is no place in this
"Art" for "Explosive" working; and
less than no place for the "Exploder."
Both are too spasmodic, orgastic, con-
vulsive; and either would burst into its
ultimate primordial atoms the most
systematic efficiency organization ever
invented. Yet, almost equally clear is
it, that without both of these joyous
unruly factors there would be no Art
dramatic, artistic, nor even produc-
tive in which to be efficient, to prac-
tice the Art of Efficiency.
Often Overlooked.
A real Art of Human Efficiency
must, of course, take cognizance of
the inherent characteristics of the hu-
man elements; and the most basic
quality of life certainly of life exem-
plified in Man is this very quality of
explosiveness explosiveness which we
all so commonly overlook and insist-
ently ignore till made to sit up and
take notice by some extra-violent
eruption in our own vicinity, or in
one's own self.
Here, then, seems to be a funda-
mental difficulty: Efficiency requires
control in order to be efficient. But
human beings, to be human, must
freely effervesce uncontrollably erupt
or contract to mere efficiency rou-
tine-output-producing machines.
This raises the question at once:
To what end is the modern Art of.
Efficiency directed? What is its con-
sciously desired goal?
Of course, we all know the obvious
and seemingly conclusive answer: To
make better men in order to increase
their productiveness.
This answer, it seems to me, in-
stead of being conclusive, only raises
another string of deeply vital ques-
tions.
Is "Efficiency"' Efficient?
Can an Art of Efficiency, dealing
with human elements incidentally, bn,
with products as its first considera-
tion, conceivably result in other than
ultimate disaster to the incidental
"elements"?
Can the finished human output of
our boasted Art become more desir-
ably Human and less machines than
the inefficient human raw materials?
By Efficiency's first law, must not
the primary object necessarily divert
to itself all consideration de-human-
ize the Human Element into highly
efficient mechanisms for production?
Is mechanistic efficiency Humanly
efficient?
Is the Art of Efficiency, by any
chance, mis-directed? Misdirected
towards products as an end in itself,
instead of towards the development of
vitally initiative human individuals-
joyous workers, to whom product is
a by-product, wealth an incident
MEN, who, for the very joy of the
working, work explosively?
Fernwald, Berkeley, November, 1916.
Working Explosively
Versus
Working Efficiently
By William Henry Smyth
Leprinted from Industrial Management, May, 1917.)
Between working efficiently and
working ineffectively there can be
no question as to which is the more
desirable, nor would I raise any such
issue.
"Working Explosively" is not an
argument for inefficiency, quite the
contrary. The article, as I intended
it, and as I think it indicates to the
thoughtful reader, is merely a Stop!
Look! Listen! signal; a hand raised;
a suggestion to pause pause a mo-
ment to consider whether we are
intelligently directing our efforts
toward the end for which we seek,
the goal for which we strive, the
reward for which we all struggle.
My own experience with life
ranges through the whole gamut,
from the coarsest forms of manual
labor up to original constructive
mental work, both as employed and
employer at the grind of "work-
ing efficiently" and the joy of
"working explosively/' I have as-
sociated on terms of equality with
hoboes, with laborers, with mechan-
ics, and with captains of industry
and finance. And far from being
a socialist, I am individualistic to the
nth degree. Thus, my Stop! Look!
Listen! warning is based on facts,
and upon experience, not upon the
fancies of an overwrought imagina-
tion.
Importance of Worker
Based upon this varied experience,
the question I wish to raise involves
the relative importance of the work-
er, or his work human worth, or
the products of human toil.
Efficiency is no new invention; it
is as old as intelligence itself. None
realize efficiency so completely as
the creative genius, our Darwins,
Faradays, Edisons, and Fords, and
none so completely practice and ex-
emplify working explosively. Genius
itself, we are told, is the capability
for taking infinite pains.
The Art of Efficiency proposes to
substitute the short- cut of imitating
efficient mechanical tricks for the
toilsome process of becoming a
mechanic.
The Explosive Worker is a strenu-
ous worker whose intense preoccupa-
tion is with accomplishing perfectly
that predetermined end in which his
interest is centered. He works with
intelligent personal intention driven
by the explosive energy of his pur-
pose. If he is driving rivets, he
is driving them so that they will
accomplish the object intended.
Working Explosively is human
purpose expressing itself through
inanimate material; it is not the
function of an unhurried efficient
human machine striking so many
well directed blows in a definite
time.
Means Personal Energy
Working Explosively means per-
sonal energy, strenuously applied to
the accomplishment of a personally
desirable result.
Working Explosively is not a
matter of habit, instinct, or routine.
It involves the concentration of all
the faculties upon the work in hand
to the end of producing the result
desired. It is subconscious impulse
raised to conscious effort of accom-
plishment.
The Efficiency Expert joyously
fills his God-like function as he
shuffles numbered human 'hands"
and rearranges his human "pegs"
into round or square holes, so that
"hands" and "pegs" shall contribute
most efficiently to production. But,
soulless pegs and automaton hands
which will passively stay put are
somewhat different factors from
Men and Women with personal likes
and dislikes and smouldering pas-
sions which must explode either in
Work or War hence industrial un-
rest and warfare.
40
WORKING EXPLOSIVELY
The "Art of Efficiency" is merely
a new name for an old and very
dangerous form or misdirection of
effort.
The essential question is not how
many more billion dollars worth
of product can be made or saved,
but how many more million human
beings can express themselves in the
direction of personal accomplish-
ment. And, in my view, this latter
course is the more logical and the
more likely one to produce the for-
mer results indirectly through the
interest of the worker than directly
through the efficient control of his
action.
Outside Worker
"Working Efficiently" assumes
control outside of the worker, direct-
ing his actions and efforts toward a
purpose in the mind of the con-
troller.
"Working Explosively" assumes
control inside of the worker, di-
recting his action and energy
towards an interesting outcome.
In a broad sense, one is Autocracy
and the other Democracy. Imper-
fectly but significantly, Germany
and the United States repre-
sent these two opposite ideals
of human activity. The one repre-
sents efficient working, the other
a crude and embryonic form of
working explosively. One makes for
mechanistic efficiency, the other for
human liberty.
Hopefulness is a personal quality,
it cannot exist in connection with
work in the outcome of which the
worker is not interested, and Hope-
fulness is a fundamental factor in
working explosively.
"Working Explosively" and "Work-
ing Efficiently" express only imper-
fectly the underlying idea in each.
In essence, they imply two opposite
ideals. In the former, emphasis is
placed upon the worker; in the latter,
emphasis is placed upon the work. To
my way of thinking the two points
of view are essentially antithetical.
Of course, the only way of bring-
ing about the welfare of human kind
is on the basis of right and justice.
But, who shall determine these mo-
mentous bases? You or I? The
Efficiency Expert or the "pegs"
which he re-arranges into round or
square holes? The employer or the
employed?
Conflict Exists
To close our eyes and pretend that
there is no conflict between employer
and employed is futility itself. To
say that the interest of these is mu-
tual when the employer has all of
the joy of working explosively and
the employed all the grind of work-
ing efficiently is equally futile.
I gird neither against employer
nor employed. My proposition is:
from the joy of the work Working
Explosively come better men.
more worthy citizens, and greater
commonweal.
I hold that a human being human
personality is of infinitely more
consequence than the product of the
hands and brain; that a true ulti-
mate efficiency implies the liberation
of Man rather than the efficient con-
trol of his actions; that the ultimate
well-being of all implies not the ^ in-
telligent control of passively^ efficient
human elements, but the liberation
of men and women to purposeful
joy of Working Explosively.
Fernwald, Berkeley, March, 1917.
IS THE EFFICIENT CONTROL OF MEN
MORE DESIRABLE THAN
FREEDOM?
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES
CDfl3Dflll5fl